
Class 

Book- 

GopyrigMlf. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 




■< by Ira L. Hill 




AT THE WAR 



BY 

LORD NORTHCLIFFE 



NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 






COPYEIGHT, 1916 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 




DEC 19 1916 



PRINTED IN IHE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



©GLA44683G 






(Q 



TO MY MOTHER 



FOR THE RED CROSS 

This assembly of some of my letters, telegrams, 
cablegrams, and other writings about the war, 
and kindred matters, has been made at the re- 
quest of the British Red Cross Society and Order 
of St. John. 

The generosity of the publishers will permit 
any profit that may arise to pass to the Joint 
Committee of those Societies. 

NORTHCLIFFE. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

OUR SOLDIER BOYS ARRIVE 3 

THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 13 

THE WOMEN ARE SPLENDID 35 

A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR .... 41 

WARPLANES 61 

SIR DOUGLAS HAIG 69 

JOFFRE 79 

CADORNA 87 

UNDER THE SIX STARS 95 

THE WAR DOCTORS 107 

RED CROSS VISITS: 

(l) THE PEOPLE AT 83 PALL MALL AND ELSEWHERE . . 1 29 

(n) HOW SOME OP THE MONEY IS SPEKT 15O 

(ni) THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 1 63 

LIFE IN REIMS 187 

BEFORE VERDUN 197 

THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 219 

WITH THE ITALIANS 233 

(l) IN GORIZIA 233 

(n) HOW GORIZIA WAS TAKEN 238 

(in) THE CARSO BATTLES 243 

(iv) ON THE CADORE FRONT 253 

(v) FIGHTING IN THE DOLOMITES 260 

(vi) THE GATE TO ITALY BARRED 267 

vii 



viii CONTENTS 

NEUTRAL GLIMPSES: page 

(l) THE GERMANS IN SWITZERLAND 277 

(n) OUR RELEASED PRISONERS 289 

(m) FOOD FOR OUR MEN IN GERMANY 299 

(iv) GENEVA 307 

(v) THE GERMANS IN SPAIN 315 

(Vl) A SPANISH TOUR 334 

INDEX 345 



OUR SOLDIER BOYS ARRIVE 



OUR SOLDIER BOYS ARRIVE 

Somewhi^re: in France;. 

I have: not seen any description of the arrival 
of our dear soldier boys, many of whom have 
never before left England, in the country which 
is the destination, for good or for ill, of the ma- 
jority of those who leave England on the Great 
Adventure. Quite by chance I have on two oc- 
casions witnessed the landing abroad of a great 
number of them. 

At three o'clock one morning, in a certain 
French town, I was awakened by the sound of 
an English bugle call. Throwing open the win- 
dow I looked out, and there, in the glare of tall 
arc lights, had assembled, as if by magic, a great 
company of English soldiers who had just landed. 
I could hear the roll being called. In a few 
minutes the transport in which they had come 
had steamed away, and the thousand or so young 
Britons had passed from the harbour and were 
on their way to their fate. The great lamps 
were extinguished, they were gone, and the whole 
thing seemed like a dream. It was a scene queer 
and mysterious, and was not witnessed by any 
but a few dock workers and myself. 

3 



4 AT THE WAR 

I had forgotten the incident until, the other 
day at Boulogne, I saw, by day, the arrival of 
another transport's load. I determined to watch 
our boys and their demeanour on reaching a 
strange country that was to be for them so full 
of romance and adventure. Bright, fresh lads, 
their English faces looked so red beside those 
of our darker Allies. 

So few hours had elapsed since they had left 
England that many of them still wore the flow- 
ers their sweethearts had given them on leav- 
ing. They looked about earnestly and curiously ; 
their officers, a little nervous, I thought, were 
marshalling them for the roll-call, somewhat 
anxious as to what the busy townspeople, hurry- 
ing to their midday dejeuner would think; the 
French present took very little notice, for they 
had witnessed this scene every day for months. 
Women went among the soldiers selling oranges 
and cigarettes, and there was a little chaffing 
between the French girls and the "Tommies," 
in which the girls did most of the badinage. Soon 
they passed, as I had seen the others do at night, 
on their way to a rest camp, whence they will 
spread all over Northern France, so that eventu- 
ally one finds them in the most unexpected 
places. 

I have seen them working great barges, run- 
ning trains and steamboats, digging trenches, 



OUR SOLDIER BOYS ARRIVE 5 

building bridges, making roads and railways, 
erecting huts, and always neat and spruce. 

The faces of our soldiers, unlike those of the 
Germans, are full of individuality. Our boys 
have their own ways of doing things, and while 
they are the finest troops in the world for trench 
fighting, being immovable (and ferocious!) as 
German prisoners have told me on more than 
one occasion, they have their own peculiarities 
in regard to their food and their living. 

One of the good qualities that particularly dis- 
tinguish the British soldier from any other is 
his insistence upon smartness. Our "Tommy" 
has his own walk and his own way of wearing 
his clothes, so distinctive that one can distin- 
guish him on the skyline in a country where Eng- 
lish, French, and Belgians are working together. 

One day last week I had the interesting experi- 
ence of seeing the depots of part of the English 
Army, part of the French Army, and part of 
the Belgian Army. The contrast was interest- 
ing. "Tommy" is certainly an epicure, and he 
is right, for nothing we can give and nothing 
we can do can be too good for our boys. For 
his enjoyment we export supplies which, stacked 
in boxes, form veritable walls of dates, jam, 
pickled walnuts, chutney, and pepper, not to men- 
tion bacon, bully beef, butter, and cheese. The 
French soldier is a better cook than "Tommy," 



6 AT THE WAR 

and he manages with much less meat, but has a 
great deal more bread, much more soup (which 
he makes from bread, leeks, and meat), an oc- 
casional chicken, when he can get it, coffee, and 
a little red wine. 

The Italian has a most varied diet, as I have 
described in a later telegram in this collection. 

The Belgian soldier insists on immense quan- 
tities of potatoes, with soup, cheese, bread and 
butter, and meat. 

Our Army is perfectly fed according to the de- 
mands of its own men. 

There never has been an army so well cared 
for. Take the Y.M.C.A. huts alone. They are 
to be found everywhere in the most unlikely 
places, and are not, as some people seem to think, 
centres for the dissemination of cant and tracts, 
but bright and attractive clubs, where, at the 
minimum price, soldiers can, if they wish, add 
to the good things provided by grateful John 
Bull. Not only are there Y.M.C.A. huts, but 
there are also those of the Church and Salva- 
tion Armies, and private efforts in addition. 

As for hospital care, the Royal Army Med- 
ical Corps, the British Red Cross Society, the 
Canadian and Australian Red Cross, and the Or- 
der of St. John of Jerusalem, with independent 
bodies, such as the Society of Friends and the 
American Ambulance, have produced organisa- 
tions at whose perfection I stand and marvel. 



OUR SOLDIER BOYS ARRIVE 7 

Much of it has been made possible by pubHc 
generosity at home, much of it by Government 
foresight and wisdom, much of it by great self- 
sacrifice on the part of workers. I have seen 
him who is said to be the world's greatest sur- 
geon acting as his own dresser in a hospital for 
privates. I saw the King's own doctor the other 
day helping in one of the great hospitals at 
Wimereux. One often hears it said that had 
the military part of the war been conducted with 
the vigour and prevision that have prevailed in 
the Army Service Corps, the R.A.M.C., and the 
British Red Cross Society; had the munitions, 
big howitzers, and machine guns been thought 
of as quickly as the hospitals and the transport, 
the Germans would have long ago been driven 
over the Rhine. 

One sometimes feels that while everything 
has been done for "Tommy," not enough has been 
done for the young officers. Their case will re- 
quire more attention before the war is over. 
Their pay and allowances are grossly insufficient. 
Going to and from the front they often have to 
stop at expensive hotels, and in war time every- 
thing, of course, is necessarily high in price. I 
was delighted to come across something new at 
Boulogne in the shape of an officers' club founded 
by Lady Dudley, which is exactly what is re- 
quired for the happiness and comfort of offi- 



8 AT THE WAR 

cers, to whom, after the mud, toil, and danger of 
the trenches, the place must seem a veritable 
haven. The idea should be extended to other 
bases and centres.^ The officer has no Y.M.C.A. 
hut, and is often lonely in his comings and go- 
ings in a strange land. Lady Dudley's kindly 
thought and industry in this matter and her pro- 
vision of much English comfort for the club re- 
mind me that a great many of the enthusiastic 
ladies who volunteered their help at the begin- 
ning of the war have found the work harder than 
they thought, and in some cases much too onerous 
for health. 

Yet there are many British, Canadian, and 
Australian women doing all sorts of voluntary 
work behind the front which should, if only as 
an example, be better known than it is. Does 
one ever think of the fatigue of nurses, of the 
terrific strain many of them endure at times when 
fighting is active? Many of these overworked 
ladies do not get the rest that is needed. Lady 
Gififord manages the beautiful home given by 
Princess Louise in the woods of Hardelot, now 
yellow with wild daffodils. She tells me that 
sometimes the sisters cannot get the sound of 
the guns out of their ears for days, and I can 
imagine that Hardelot, with its beautiful sands 
and its golf course, is a paradise after life in a 
hospital near the fighting line. On a large part 
^ This has been done. 



OUR SOLDIER BOYS ARRIVE 9 

of the coast of France from north of Wimereux 
to Etaples is a long series of palatial hospitals for 
our soldier boys. I suppose the most northerly 
on that section is the Australian Hospital, of 
which the matron and mu'ses are all from the 
southern continent. It stands out on the breezy 
cliffs. Near by is Lady Hadfield's hospital and 
a vast assemblage of perfectly managed R.A.M.C. 
hospitals, including even a hospital for the nurses 
themselves, for they, poor things, often need one. 
I have had little talks with some hundreds of 
our soldiers during the war, and in regard to 
care and comfort and nursing, diet and clothes, 
the provision for reading and smoking, I have 
never heard a single complaint. The health of 
all is wonderful. The meeting of Scotsman and 
Southerner, Londoner and Provincial, Irishman 
and Englishman is bringing about an interchange 
of thought that will materially alter British poli- 
tics as soon as the boys return home. There 
are the Canadians, too, with their independent 
thinking and initiative. Now that the Austra- 
lians and New Zealanders have come there will 
be a veritable formation, in France, of an in- 
dissoluble bond of Empire which, I do not doubt, 
will have vast influence on the future of the 
world's history. 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 
E^i^'iciE^NCY AND Youth 

SoMi^wHE^R^ IN France^. 

Take: this powerful pair of field-glasses in your 
hand. They were captured yesterday in a Ger- 
man dug-out and bear the famous mark of Zeiss, 
of Jena. Adjust them carefully and look well 
over to where dark clouds of shells are bursting 
so rapidly that they form what looks like a dense 
mass of London fog, with continuous brief and 
vivid flashes of explosions. That is Pozieres. 
That is how Fricourt looked and how Longue- 
val is looking on the day this is penned. From 
behind where we sit ensconced in an old German 
trench there come night and day the bang and 
the far-travelling scream of British shells. It 
does not seem possible that any one can emerge 
alive from those bombarded villages. 

From north to south is an irregular chain of 
watchful observation balloons. High and glit- 
tering in the sunshine are planes, directed as 
often as not by boys who in happier times would 
be in the boats or the playing fields. Their hero- 
ism during the last few weeks has never been 
equalled, except in this war. 

13 



14. AT THE WAR 

The battles of the Somme are not, of course, 
so easily witnessed as those which can be seen 
from the heights around Verdun, but they are a 
great deal more visible and understandable than 
the depressing artillery duels in the plains and 
swamps of Flanders. Neither photographs nor 
maps give much real impression of the great 
panorama, which is, indeed, only possible for an 
onlooker to understand when accompanied by one 
who has witnessed the steady conquest of the 
German trenches from the beginning of the move- 
ment which was made on July i. What is easy 
to realise, and so cheering to our soldiers, is that 
we give the Germans full measure and more in 
the matter of guns and shells. A couple of hours 
in any place where the battles can be properly 
observed is enough for the nerves of the average 
civilian, for to see battles properly one must be 
well in reach of the enemy, and so when we have 
had our fill we make our way along a communi- 
cation trench to where a small and unobtrusive 
motor has been hidden. 

Presently we come to the roads where one sees 
one of the triumphs of the war, the transport 
which brings the ammunition for the guns and 
the food for the men, a transport which has had 
to meet all kinds of unexpected difficulties. The 
last is water, for our troops are approaching a 
part of France which is as chalky and dry as our 
South Downs. 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 15 

Some researches with a view to placing on 
record the work of the British Red Cross So- 
ciety and Order of St. John in their relations to 
the wonderful Army Medical Service in France 
have brought the writer into touch with almost 
the most splendid achievement of the war, the 
building up of the great organisation that lies be- 
tween the Somme and the British Isles. 

In common with other writers I have been able 
to visit the various theatres of war from time 
to time, and have not hesitated to criticise things 
that were obviously wrong. 

I shall here set down the miraculously changed 
conditions, from the point of view of efficiency 
and economy, in which we enter upon the third 
year of war. 

Communication being as urgent as transport, 
the Royal Engineers have seen to it that the large 
area of Northern and North- West France in 
which our Armies are operating has been linked 
up by a telephonic system unique. It is no mere 
collection of temporary wires strung from tree 
to tree. The poles and wires are in every way 
as good as those of the Post Office at home. The 
installation might indeed be thought to be ex- 
travagant, but cheap telephoning is notoriously 
bad telephoning. A breakdown of communica- 
tions which might be caused by the fierce wind 
and electric storms which have happened so fre- 
quently in the war would spell a great inconve- 



16 AT THE WAR 

nience or even worse. An indistinct telephone is 
useless. And so, marching with the Army, and 
linking up a thousand essential points, is a tele- 
phone service that cannot be bettered. To-day 
it would be quite possible for the Commander- 
in-Chief, if he so desired, to call up London from 
beyond Fricourt, for our wires are already in 
places where we saw them burying the blackened 
corpses of dead Germans, and where the sound 
of great guns makes it sometimes necessary to 
shout in order to make ourselves heard in a con- 
versation. 

Every officer or head of department of im- 
portance in the British zone has a telephone at his 
hand, so that he may give and receive orders, not 
absolutely secret, by the quickest and most popu- 
lar means of communication. Where necessary, 
the English telephones are linked up with the 
trunk lines of the French Government, for which 
purposes interpreters are placed in the ex- 
changes. The speed of communication is re- 
markable. It varies, of course, with the amount 
of business, but I have seen a man call up Paris, 
London, and the seaport bases in France all 
within an hour. Supplementing the telephonic 
system is a telegraphic link, and there is also the 
wireless. The Army Signal Corps is to be con- 
gratulated on a fine achievement. Over and 
above these there are the motor despatch riders, 
some of whose experiences during the war have 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 17 

been as thrilling as those of our air boys. The 
noisy nuisance of our peace time roads at home 
has been a prime factor in the prompt waging of 
war. Motor-cycles and portable telephones ap- 
pear in the most out-of-the-way spots. Far be- 
yond Fricourt I met these cyclists making their 
way in and out and around the shell holes. 

A few days later when, visiting one of the 
workshops at the base, I saw the wrecks of simi- 
lar machines twisted and smashed out of all recog- 
nition by shrapnel, each speaking of an adventure, 
and perhaps a tragedy. The fact that these dere- 
licts were being examined for possible repair is a 
portent of the rigid economy with which, on the 
French side of the Channel at any rate, and per- 
haps on both, the war is now being conducted. 

I am not, of course, permitted to give names 
of places, or numbers, or the names of the heads 
of departments, but I shall be allowed to state 
that the always growing immensity of the Ar- 
mies, and the workshops behind the Army, is 
little understood at home, or even by those who 
have made frequent visits to the war zone. 

Mrs. Humphry Ward lately and delightfully 
lifted the veil a little, but what is required to 
bring home to the people of the Empire, who are 
so lavishly outpouring their blood and treasure, 
and also to the Allies and neutrals, is a continuous 
demonstration by skilled writers, artists, lec- 
turers, kinematograph operators, and photogra- 



18 AT THE WAR 

phers. Now that we have real war news from 
the able scribes who are allowed to tell us freely 
and frankly what is happening, readers with 
imagination are awakening to the truth that we 
have a whole South African campaign and a com- 
plete Crimea every month. But of the war be- 
hind the war, the battles behind the battles, em- 
ploying skilled workers considerably exceeding 
the number of the total original British Expedi- 
tionary Force, we have but faint glimmerings. 
You can understand the need of this vast es- 
tablishment if you realise that every part of an 
instrument of war has to be accompanied to 
France by its own attendants, its own supplies, 
and its own transport. 

The war plane of 191 6 flies upwards and away 
with the speed and grace of a dragon-fly. She 
has been made perfect and beautiful for her 
flight by skilled expert mechanics. When she re- 
turns after, let us hope, her conquest, the boys 
who have escorted her in the air (one of these 
I met was at school last year) hand her over again 
to those attendants to see if she has any rent 
in her gown or other mishap which may be speed- 
ily mended. When, therefore, you see an aero- 
plane you must realise that each machine has its 
staff. Speed and efficiency being prime essen- 
tials of victory, her caretakers must be skilled 
and young. As for her supplies, there must be 
at hand a great quantity of spare parts ready 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 19 

to be applied instantaneously, and there must 
be men, in case of need, who can either alter or 
even make such parts. There must be those who 
understand her camera and its repair, her wire- 
less and its working, men who have already learnt 
the mysteries of the newest bombs, rockets, and 
machine-guns. I take the aeroplane as an in- 
stance because of its prominence in the public 
eye. 

What applies to an aeroplane applies in other 
degrees to every kind of gun, to every form of 
motor or horse transport, ambulances, field 
kitchens, filters, and to a thousand articles which 
at first sight do not necessarily seem to be part 
of war making. 

The Army behind the Army is full of original- 
ity. It has already improved, on the spot, much 
machinery which we had thought to have attained 
perfection. This is a war of machinery as well 
as of bravery, and among Germany's many blun- 
ders was her forgetfulness of the British power 
of quick improvisation and organisation in un- 
expected circumstances, which is a secret of our 
success in building up the Empire in strange 
lands. 

The Army behind the Army is being squeezed 
for men for the front. In some places it can legit- 
imately bear more squeezing, and it is getting 
it. On the other hand, owing to their own burn- 
ing desire or by the pressure of the authorities, 



20 AT THE WAR 

men who, in the end, would have killed more Ger- 
mans by the use of their own particular skill 
in the workshop have left the anvil, the tools, 
the lathe, or the foundry for the firing line. 

Our L. of C. in France (Lines of Communica- 
tion) has developed to what must be one of the 
largest organisations in the world. It represents 
6 per cent, of the whole of our forces in France. 
It has to deal with more spheres of human in- 
dustry than I should be allowed to mention. Its 
personnel, let me repeat, is being revised continu- 
ally by medical examinations that eliminate fit 
men for the trenches. The task is a delicate one. 
An organisation absolutely essential to victory 
has at length, and after infinite labour, by pro- 
motion of the skilled and rejection of the incom- 
petent, been set on its feet. We must make 
changes with caution. 

At various times I have observed personally 
the great organisations of the Clyde, the Tyne, 
of Belfast, of Woolwich, Chicago, in and about 
Paris, at St. Etienne, at the Creusot works, in 
Hamburg, in Essen, and at Hoechst on the Rhine, 
and I say without hesitation that, making allow- 
ances for war time, our lines of communication 
organisation, superimposed as it is upon the over- 
worked French railways and roads and in a coun- 
try where there is no native labour to be had, is 
as near perfection as ever it can be. 

And I say more that, difficult as economy and 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 21 

war are to mate, I have on the occasion of this 
visit and in contrast to the days of 19 14 seen 
nothing wasted. In the early months of the war 
there was waste at home and abroad arising from 
lack of control of our national habit of spend- 
ing money with both hands. I remember a cer- 
tain French village I visited where every tiny 
mite was filling its mouth with English bread 
and jam. To-day there is enough food and a 
greater variety of foods than before, but there is 
no waste that is visible even to an inquisitive 
critic. 

Coming to the front, not only in the high com- 
mands and among regimental officers and along 
the L. of C, is a pleasing proportion of Scotch 
folk who, while generous in the giving of am- 
bulances, are not accustomed to waste anything 
in war or at any other time. To-day, almost be- 
fore the reek and fume of battle are over, almost 
before our own and the enemy dead are all buried, 
the Salvage Corps appears on the bloody and 
shell-churned scene to collect and pile unused 
cartridge and machine-gun belts, unexploded 
bombs, old shell cases, damaged rifles, haversacks, 
steel helmets, and even old rags, which go to the 
base, and are sold at £50 a ton. It is only old 
bottles, which with old newspaper, letters, meat 
tins, and broken boxes are a feature of the bat- 
tlefields, that do not appear to be worthy of sal- 
vage. 



22 AT THE WAR 

Regarding the utilisation of waste products 
there is as much ingenuity and industry along 
the Lines of Communication as would satisfy the 
directorate of the most highly over-organised 
German fdbrik. At more than one place I saw 
over i,ooo French and Belgian girls cleansing 
and repairing clothing that had come back from 
the front. They work and talk and sing with 
alacrity, and I witnessed the process of the patch- 
ing and reconstructing of what looked like an 
impossible waterproof coat, all in the course of 
a few moments. Such labour saves the British 
nation hundreds of thousands of pounds, and is 
considered well rewarded at a wage of half-a- 
crown a day. 

Elsewhere I saw men using the most modern 
Northampton machinery for soling and heeling 
any pair of old boots that would stand the opera- 
tion, and such footgear as was useless was not 
wasted, for by an ingenious contrivance invented 
on the spot by a young Dublin bootmaker the 
upper parts of these boots were being converted 
into bootlaces by the thousand. 

In the Army machine shops the waste grease 
is saved and the oil which escapes from every 
such establishment is ingeniously trapped and 
sold to local soapmakers at the equivalent of its 
present very high value. 

Since the early days of chaos and muddle we 
have conveyed across the seas machine shops and 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 23 

mechanics which must exceed by twice or thrice 
the total of those in a humming town like Coven- 
try. Such factories have had to be manned, and 
manned with labour able to meet the sudden emer- 
gencies of war. The labour has all had to come 
from home. Clerks, engineers, fitters, mechanics, 
quickly settled down to the monotonous regular- 
ity of military life and the communal existence 
of the barracks, huts, and tents in which they 
live. True it is that every consideration possi- 
ble has been shown for their happiness, comfort, 
and amusement. They have their own excellent 
canteens, reading rooms, and places of entertain- 
ment. They are not forgotten by the Y.M.C.A. 
or by the Salvation Army and Church Army, 
whose work cannot be too highly spoken of. They 
are individually looked after by their own heads 
of departments with solicitude and kindness. 
The gramophone, the joy of the dug-outs, the 
hospitals, and the billets, is a never-ending source 
of entertainment. 

The workers are by no means unable to amuse 
themselves. They are well provided with kine- 
matographs and frequent boxing tournaments. 
Gardening, too, is one of their hobbies, and from 
the casualty clearing stations at the front to the 
workers' huts at the bases are to be counted thou- 
sands of English-made gardens. The French, 
who know as little of us as we do of them, were 
not a little surprised to find that wherever he 



M AT THE WAR 

sojourns the British workman insists on making 
himself a garden. At a great veterinary hospital 
at one of the bases the men living a considerable 
distance from a town and away from other pas- 
times have planted for themselves gardens that 
would be a credit to any prosperous London sub- 
urb in peace time. 

The energy, enterprise, and spirit of the base 
commandants and hundreds of other officers 
along the lines of communications, their tact in 
their relations with our French friends, and their 
capacity for overcoming obstacles have response 
in the enthusiasm of their workers. 

Huge bakeries, the gigantic storehouses (one 
is the largest in the world), factories, and re- 
pair shops are filled with workers who are a 
visible contradiction of the allegations as to the 
alleged slackness of the British workman. The 
jealousy that exists in peace times between most 
Army and civilian establishments does not seem 
to be known. Great soldiers introduced me with 
pride to young men who had no idea two years 
ago that they would enter upon a quasi-military 
life but have adapted themselves with wonderful 
facility to entirely changed conditions. Many 
have brought with them invaluable knowledge 
gained in the management of great businesses at 
home and elsewhere. 

It is true, of course, that the workmen in our 
great French factories understand the war better 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 25 

than their brothers at home. They are nearer 
to the war. They live in the country invaded by 
the Hun. They see their French fellow-work- 
men keyed up to the highest pitch in the intense 
desire to rid fair France of her despoiler. Daily 
they see reinforcements going to the front and 
the wounded returning home. There is a war 
atmosphere even in towns like Havre and Rouen. 
The war is always present. One day I saw a 
great number of captured German cannons and 
other booty of which we hear and see so little 
at home coming down from the front. 

The authorities in England seem to hide our 
German prisoners. In France they work, and in 
public, and are content with their lot, as I know 
by personal enquiry of many of them. Save for 
the letters "P.G." (prisonnier de guerre) at the 
back of their coats it would be difficult to realise 
that comfortable-looking, middle-aged Land- 
sturm Hans, with his long pipe, and young Fritz, 
with his cigarette, were prisoners at all. If it be 
true that there be congestion in the docks at home 
caused by lack of labour, the sooner German 
prisoners are put to work and help to shorten the 
war the better. 

The war atmosphere and the patriotic keenness 
of the skilled mechanics and labour battalions in 
France have enabled the Commander-in-Chief, 
Sir Douglas Haig, who has personally visited the 
bases in hurried journeys from the front, to ac- 



26 AT THE WAR 

complish what in peace time would be the impos- 
sible. Transport alone is a miracle. The rail- 
ways are so encumbered that it is frequent to 
see trains nearly a kilometre (five-eighths of a 
mile) in length. As one travels about in search 
of information mile-long convoys of motor lor- 
ries laden with shells or food loom quickly 
towards one from out of the dense dust, and it is 
by this combination of rail and road that the 
almost impossible task has been achieved of 
keeping pace with the German strategic railways, 
which were built for the sole purpose of the quick 
expedition of men and supplies. 

There are complaints of delays in unloading 
and ''turning" shipping from England. These 
are the same complaints that have been mentioned 
in the Press and Parliament for many long 
months in regard to the delay in handling ship- 
ping in England. In Erance it is a question of 
labour and dock accommodation. The docks are 
being enlarged in more ports than one, but yet 
more labour must be brought from Britain if 
greater speed is required. 

We at home can help to speed up the machine 
if we put our backs into the task as is being done 
in France. Our motor-lorry- and other motor- 
makers could greatly facilitate the work by 
standardisation of motor parts. I do not know 
how many types of motor vehicles are being used 
in Erance, but I counted more than two score. 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 27 

Each of these requires its own spare parts in or- 
der that repairs can be speedily effected, and it 
must always be borne in mind that delay in war 
time is fatal. There are in use no fewer than 
50,000 different kinds of spare parts, including 
nuts, bolts, rivets, and screws. By proper co- 
operation between the various manufacturers 
these could be reduced to a minimum. 

In order to help economy all spare parts are 
supplied when possible from the salvage of ma- 
chines of the same type. All this debris has to 
be carefully collected, repaired and arranged in 
depots in such a manner that missing parts can 
be found instantly. The Germans use, compara- 
tively, few types of motor vehicles and have, 
therefore, an advantage over us. 

As one of the pioneers of automobilisation I 
should like to offer my tribute to all sections of 
the motor transport department in France, and 
especially to the economic manner in which waste 
has been eliminated. 

Scattered among the Army behind the Army 
are schools where war is taught by officers who 
have studied the art at the front. Here in vast 
camps the spectator might easily imagine that he 
was at the front itself. Here the pupils fresh 
from England are drilled in every form of fight- 
ing. 

There is something uncanny in the approach 
of a company to a communicating trench, in its 



28 AT THE WAR 

vanishing under the earth, and its reappearance 
some hundreds of yards away, where clambering 
"over the top," to use the most poignant expres- 
sion of the war, the soldier pupils dash forward 
in a vociferous bayonet charge. At these great 
reinforcement camps are gas mask attacks, where 
pupils are passed through underground cham- 
bers, filled with real gas, that they may become 
familiarised with one of the worst curses of war- 
fare. The gas itself is a subtle and at first not 
a very fearsome enemy, but the victim is apt to 
be overcome before he is aware of it. 

And at these miniature battlefields, all of them 
larger than the field of Waterloo, are demonstra- 
tion lecturers who teach bombing, first with toy 
bombs that explode harmlessly with a slight pufif, 
and then with the real Mills bombs which have 
a noisy and destructive effect altogether dispro- 
portionate to their size and innocent appearance. 
The various types of machine-guns are fired at in- 
genious targets all the day long. There are ac- 
tual dug-outs in which pupils are interned with 
entrances closed while gas is profusely projected 
around them so that they may learn how to deal 
with the new weapon by spraying it and flapping 
it away when the entrance is uncovered at a given 
signal. Crater fighting is taught with an actual 
reproduction of a crater, by a lusty sergeant who 
has seen much of the actual thing, and tells the 
men what to do with their bombs and with Ger- 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY ^9 

mans. Such schools are known to exist through- 
out Germany, but no Prussian thoroughness can 
better these British war-training schools in 
France. For those who are not so quick in intel- 
ligence as others there is a revival of the old 
awkward squad who are taught slowly and pa- 
tiently with remarkable results. 

In the centre of one of these schools there ar- 
rived, while I was on the scene, a great number 
of German prisoners on their way to the Base. 
I do not know how many young soldiers just 
landed from England were being trained that 
day. Certainly many, many thousands, and I 
do not wonder that the prisoners were amazed 
at the spectacle before them. One of them 
frankly confessed in excellent English that his 
comrades were under the impression that we had 
no men left. 

The food supplied to these German prisoners 
here, as everywhere, was excellent and they did 
not hesitate to say so. Temporary baths and 
other washing arrangements were fitted up for 
them, they had an abundance of tobacco, and 
were just as comfortably off in their tents as our 
soldiers not actually in barracks. Their condi- 
tion on arrival here, as elsewhere, was appalling. 
Imprisoned in their trenches by our barrage of 
fire, they had been deprived of many of the neces- 
sities of life for days, and on their arrival ate 
ravenously. Most of them were Prussian Guards 



80 AT THE WAR 

and Bavarians, and the number who had the Iron 
Cross ribbon in their button-holes was eloquent 
testimony to the type of enemy troops our New 
Armies have been fighting. 

If there be loss of time and energy in the Army 
behind the Army it may be found in one or two 
of the clerical establishments, which might be 
carefully modernised. In some of these depart- 
ments it is said that men of military age are still 
engaged. If this be so, there is still a certain 
supply of superfluous middle-aged clerical labour 
at home that might be gradually introduced. 

There is beyond question a growing demand 
for the filling up of more and more forms in con- 
nexion with the Army. It is a disease which 
should be checked now before it becomes a hin- 
drance to efficient working. In some of the cleri- 
cal departments the use of modern files and in- 
dexes does not seem to be general, but this does 
not apply to all departments, for I saw many that 
were quite up-to-date. 

In one great branch is kept a complete record 
of every British soldier, from the hour of his ar- 
rival in France to his departure, or death. Think 
of the countless essential letters, and forms that 
must necessarily be filled up, to achieve that end 
efficiently and with accuracy. 

Another department, which exists for the sat- 
isfaction of relatives, and possible decisions in 
the Court of Probate, keeps an exact record of 



THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 31 

the time of death and place of burial of every 
officer and private soldier in France, whether he 
comes from the British Islands or the Dominions. 
Such establishments necessarily demand the use 
of much clerical labour. 

It should be remembered always, in regard to 
such a department as that which follows the 
course of every soldier in France, that Tommy 
is a difficult person to deal with. It is more than 
possible that there is a considerable number of 
men who have been reported as missing and dead 
who are not missing or dead at all. One case was 
discovered whilst I was at a certain office. It 
was that of a soldier who had been reported miss- 
ing for more than a year but who was found in 
comfortable surroundings doing duty as an Army 
cook in a totally different part of the field from 
that in which he disappeared. 

There are countless departments of which the 
public knows nothing. I have only space and time 
to deal with one more. It is that which watches 
over the recovery of the effects of dead men and 
officers. There are separate departments for each, 
but I only saw that affecting the men. 

The work begins on the battlefield and in the 
hospitals, where I saw the dead bodies being 
reverently searched. A list is carefully made 
there and then, and that list accompanies the lit- 
tle familiar belongings which are a part of every 
man's life to one of the great bases on the lines 



32 AT THE WAR 

of communication. The bag is there opened by 
two clerks, who check it once more, securely fas- 
tening it, and sending it home, where it eventu- 
ally reaches the next-of-kin. I watched the open- 
ing of one such pathetic parcel during the final 
checking. It contained a few pence, a pipe, a 
photo of wife and bairn, a trench ring made of 
the aluminium of an enemy fuze, a small diary, 
and a pouch. It was all the man had. 

They told me that nearly every soldier carries 
a souvenir. In one haversack was found a huge 
piece of German shell which had probably been 
carried for months. The relatives at home set 
great store on these treasures, and though the 
proper officials to address are those at the War 
Office, London, the people in France are often 
in receipt of indignant letters from relatives ask- 
ing why this or that trifle has not been returned. 

One of them which arrived that day said, "I 
gave my son to the war, you have had him, you 
might at least return all his property intact. 
Where are the pair of gloves and zinc ointment 
he had with him?" 

The work of collecting these last mementos of 
the dead is carried out with promptness, care, and 
very kindly feeling, despite the monotony of the 
task, which begins in the morning and goes on 
to the evening, a task which is increasing daily 
with the size of the war. 



THE WOMEN ARE SPLENDID 



THE WOMEN ARE SPLENDID^ 

Woman's part in the war; not the tender 
nursing part — that was expected by all — but the 
great share she is taking in what was once man's 
work is one of the great surprises. 

There is just a note of wounded vanity in the 
confessions of thousands of men who have to 
admit to-day that, unknown to themselves, they 
have been performing tasks which are now 
proved to have been women's work. Across the 
Channel, in France, women have always success- 
fully managed large businesses. There is a large 
number of cases in point: Mme. Pommery, whose 
champagne sparkles around the world ; Mme. Du- 
val, who organised the popular restaurants that 
were the forerunners of so many in London; 
Mme. Paquin, who succeeded her husband in the 
great modiste business; Mme. Curie, who dis- 
covered radium. Women play a prominent part 
in French politics, French business, French sci- 
ence, French agriculture, and in French affairs 
generally. 

^ This article was among the first to call attention to 
the great part played by women in the effective waging 
of war. 

85 



36 AT THE WAR 

Throughout the English-speaking world we 
have always prided ourselves on sheltering our 
womenkind. We have not, for example, cared to 
see them working in the fields and at the heavier 
forms of manual labour. There has been a great 
deal of self-deception about it, because, after all, 
women have performed heavy tasks in factories 
for a century or more. And we must not forget 
our old friends, the chainmakers of Cradley 
Heath. 

Again, from the days of Florence Nightingale, 
the noble work of nursing our sick and carrying 
on the service of our hospitals has been to an in- 
creasing extent in the hands of women. In no 
field have they displayed a higher competence, 
a more sublime devotion ; and few indeed are they 
who have not at some time or other in their lives 
incurred a tremendous debt to the British hos- 
pital nurse. Again, here and there before the 
war, gifted women, such as Elizabeth Fry and 
Octavia Hill, showed the way in social reform 
among us, and lately women have shone in jour- 
nalism and in municipal work. 

Yet, despite these very striking exceptions, the 
war has already proved that woman has not 
hitherto been given her opportunity in most parts 
of the Empire. For some years her cause was ob- 
scured by the hysteria of the Suffragettes. To- 
day it begins to look as though the votes-for- 
women demonstrations were but manifestations 



THE WOMEN ARE SPLENDID 37 

of the tremendous pent-up energy of more than 
half the nation. 

Women have taken to every kind of war work 
with a rapidity and adaptabiHty that have cer- 
tainly not been shown by all the ruling sex. It 
has been openly admitted that in many munition 
factories women, in their eagerness to defeat the 
enemy, are producing a greater output of energy 
each day than men working in the same 
shops. 

Women have successfully initiated themselves 
into new kinds of war work which had hitherto 
been regarded as coming only within man's 
sphere. Sometimes, however, woman, in the ex- 
cess of her zeal, is doing work she ought not to 
be permitted to do in the interest of the race and 
the nation. Delicately-bred women should not 
be allowed to push tradesmen's heavy tricycles or 
undertake the duties of grooms and ostlers. But 
there are still wide fields of opportunity for them 
in most of the indoor and many of the outdoor 
occupations. 

These vocations will remain open in those dim 
and distant days, known as "After the war," 
when no self-respecting male will again be seen 
matching ribbons behind counters, typewriting, 
standing behind aldermanic chairs, or playing the 
piano at kinema theatres. The men who have 
been bomb-throwing will have no appetite for the 
hundred-and-one gentle and essentially feminine 



88 AT THE WAR 

pursuits by which they have hitherto earned their 
living. 

Every woman who is releasing a man from his 
work is helping in the war. And — to do them 
justice — women, with their characteristic intui- 
tion, saw that fact instantly. Every woman so 
engaged is showing the world the real capacity of 
her sex for many kinds of labour, and is also 
helping the country to progress towards a much- 
desired goal : the more equal distribution of money 
among the people. 

Before the war, in dreary, manless suburbs and 
provincial towns, thousands of nice girls, whose 
families thought it beneath their dignity that they 
should work, preferred the boresome existence of 
keeping up appearances on small dress allow- 
ances to an active participation in daily life. 
Since the war these young women have entered 
into the battle of industrial work with joyous- 
ness and, though the absence of the best of the 
land in the war zone is unhappily delaying the 
marriage to which every patriotic woman looks 
forward, they have the great satisfaction of 
knowing that, whether they be women doctors, 
women dentists, women clerks, women ticket col- 
lectors, or engaged in any other profession, they 
are helping the great cause of Freedom. 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE 
WAR 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE 
WAR 

It is a strange sensation, that of being the only 
man in civilian clothes among hundreds of thou- 
sands of soldiers. 

At first the attention one receives from eyes al- 
ways either curious or suspicious is embarrassing, 
and even after some weeks of the armies one 
never quite gets used to the situation. It is but 
natural that soldiers have no use for any but 
soldiers in war-time. Officers and men may not 
appear to be anxious, or working with great in- 
tensity, but every one in an army knows that he 
is part of an intricate machine, and that although 
his part may be only a small one, it is essential to 
the whole. 

A civilian, therefore, is an intruder, a mere 
passenger among an overworked crew. Almost 
the only civilians who are ever to be found in 
civilian costume close to the fighting-line are 
members of Parliament, members of the French 
Chamber of Deputies, or an occasional irregular 
correspondent. Regular correspondents, both 
with the French and British Armies, are in uni- 

41 



42 AT THE WAR 

form. Even the kinematograph operators with 
the French Army are in uniform, and wear the 
steel helmet of the troops — as well they may, for 
a stray shot from a rifle or a fragment of shrap- 
nel may wander far from its intended path, and 
now and then the kinematograph operator, if he 
is to take a great picture, can only do so by get- 
ting close to the enemy. Armies objected to civil- 
ians at the beginning of the war because they 
feared them as spies. It is now thought, how- 
ever, that spies with the armies have been prac- 
tically eradicated; and if there be any spies at 
the Front, they are not so foolish as to wear the 
ordinary overcoat and cap of civilian life, inviting 
as they do a demand for passes and other papers 
at every turn. 

One's first impression of war is chaos and con- 
fusion, and the immensity of it all. 

Miles back from the battle-line, it may be a 
hundred miles or only twenty, are the bases at 
which all the army supplies are first assembled 
and stored. We will say that the base is the port 

of , and from that base are supplied one 

hundred thousand men, with their horses, if they 
have them, their motors, bicycles, rifles, guns 
great and small, machine-guns, bombs, aero- 
planes, observation balloons, clothes, medical 
stores, beef, bacon, butter, cheese, jam, pickles, 
pepper, salt, shells of all sizes, cartridges, forage, 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 43 

harness, carts, portable hospitals, ambulance- 
wagons, games, and a hundred and one other 
things which will suggest themselves to any per- 
son who has had something to do with the equip- 
ment of a single soldier since the war began. All 
these supplies have to be kept at high-water 
mark in regular daily rotation, and one easily un- 
derstands how it is that in the British Army the 
all-round cost of a soldier is between jfive and six 
pounds a week. Realising that what one sees be- 
fore one are only the supplies for one hundred 
thousand men, it requires very little effort of the 
imagination to picture the colossal stores needed 
for the four millions of men who are fighting in 
Belgium and France alone. 

The first impression, therefore, of war, is the 
immensity and complication of it. 

The next and more mature impression that one 
gets is that now war has settled down to a regular 
business, it proceeds at the bases with the clock- 
work regularity of a great business. 

Near most of the bases are the base hospitals. 
On what a gigantic scale are preparations made 
for the casualties in modern war! How truly 
wonderful are these hospitals, whether they be 
of the Royal Army Medical Corps, the British 
Red Cross Society, or the Order of St. John 
of Jerusalem! If there has been much fighting 
recently, the hotels which have been turned into 



44 AT THE WAR 

hospitals and the remarkable hut hospitals will 
be filled. There never was a more wonderful 
work done in the world's history than the care 
of the wounded soldiers of the British Empire in 
this great struggle. On the north-west of France, 
between Etaples and Wimereux, are literally 
miles of hut hospitals, situated on high, dry 
ground, on well-built foundations, with well- 
made roads, electric light, and perfect operating 
theatres and dental parlours — ^hospitals just as 
good as the very best of their kind in our great 
cities at home, and staffed by men in the highest 
position in the medical profession, many of them 
having given up large practices in London, Mon- 
treal, or Sydney, as the case may be,^ Elsewhere 
behind the lines are other hospitals of various 
types. To these establishments are attached 
wonderful convoys of ambulances. 

Though the precision and violence of modern 
weapons may have greatly increased the danger 
of warfare, science, Listerism, and mechanical 
ingenuity have come to the rescue by providing 
all sorts of means by which the lives of the 
wounded are saved. Chief among these is the 
motor-ambulance, which swiftly brings the 
wounded man from the casualty clearing-station 

^ Elsewhere in this volume I have dealt with the 
Medical Services in a chapter entitled "The War 
Doctors." 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 45 

in the field to a hospital where he is more thor- 
oughly attended to, and then direct or to rail- 
head for despatch to the nearest base hospital. 
It is wonderful to think that there are men who 
have been seriously wounded, given due medical 
attention, taken to the base, and brought to Lon- 
don, all in less than eighteen hours. 

In addition to land hospitals, there are float- 
ing hospitals, most beautifully fitted up, literally 
sea-palaces for the wounded. John Bull has in- 
deed taken good care of those who have sufifered 
in his cause. Let us hope, and see to it, that he 
will he as thoughtful for the disabled and their 
dependents in the future. 

^c ^» ^c y^ ^i* 

Leaving the base, one is naturally anxious to 
reach actual warfare as speedily as one can. So 
much has been written about the British and the 
Belgian trenches, in which I have often stood, 
that I think it would be more interesting if I 
described in detail the approach to the great bat- 
tle of Verdun, one of the greatest struggles in 
the history of the world. 

Verdun is in Eastern France, about one hun- 
dred and fifty miles from Paris, and the battle 
zone begins long, long before you get to the 
neighbourhood of Verdun itself. I went to Ver- 
dun by auto-car. The railways, of course, are 
blocked with cannon, ammunition, food, and 
troops. 



46 AT THE WAR 

Long before reaching the front, twenty-five 
miles from the battle, it had been obvious that 
we were approaching some great event. Whole 
villages were filled with soldiers, resting or wait- 
ing to be called into the line. There were great 
fields full of artillery, "parks," as they are called, 
and vast plains covered with wagons at close in- 
tervals. As for wheeled vehicles, whenever I see 
one now I think of the war. Soldiers frequently 
travel by motor-omnibuses of all kinds from their 
rest places to the threshold of the firing-line, but 
there are in Europe hundreds of thousands, I 
might say millions, of horse vehicles of all sizes 
and shapes. Both England and France have re- 
sponded wonderfully to the call for transport. 

In August, 1914, we at once requisitioned 
tradesmen's delivery vans. It was amusing at 
that time at the British Front to see motors be- 
longing to well-known English, Scotch, and Irish 
breweries going on their way to the Front laden 
with soldiers or shells, and also to see pleasure 
motor charabancs with the names of Margate, 
Blackpool, and Scarborough emblazoned thereon. 
These, however, have mostly been either super- 
seded or painted the dull military grey and khaki 
which one associates with this grim, grim war. 

^M jlj jj* jlj jlj 

Waiting, and ominous, are vast arrays of am- 
bulances, both horse and motor. 

Then one comes across huge reserve stores of 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 47 

ammunition. It has been stated that up to the 
time at which I write (April, 1916) the Ger- 
mans have fired fifteen millions of shells during 
the battles for Verdun. 

A million is a very large number. People use 
the terms thousands, hundreds of thousands, and 
millions glibly and rather vaguely. Certain it 
is, however, that the French, when I was with 
them, had millions of reserve shells. I counted 
certain sections containing a thousand shells, and 
could judge roughly how many times the amount 
of space occupied was represented by quantities 
of other shells of the same size which I saw. 
It was in this way easy to arrive at the fact 
that of great and little shells the French had 
many millions. Shells for the 75 — or the Brit- 
ish three-inch — gun take up comparatively little 
space when standing on end. 

But it is not only ammunition and soldiers that 
are going along the road to the battle. There 
are the great supplies of bread and meat. The 
French, covering their Paris motor-omnibuses 
with perforated zinc, transformed them into meat 
wagons. Everything now goes to the battle on 
wheels. 

It is rarely that one hears bands in modern 
war. Once, on my way to the battle of Verdun, 
I came across something that looked like a war 



48 AT THE WAR 

picture — a squadron of lancers with their pen- 
nants gaily streaming, preceded by a corps of 
buglers. 

For the rest this war is a horrible, grim, me- 
chanical business. Bravery, of course, still counts, 
and British and French bravery has done much 
to meet the superiority in big guns which the 
Germans undoubtedly had at the beginning. 

Considerably away from the firing-line, five, 
eight, ten, or even twenty-five miles, are the 
headquarters of the various armies. War is not 
directed from the battlefield as of yore. The idea 
of Napoleon and Wellington eyeing each other 
through telescopes, which it is alleged they did, 
seems ridiculous to a modern soldier who has 
not seen the little field of Waterloo. The Ger- 
man and French generals at the battle of Ver- 
dun were always at least twenty miles apart. 
The headquarters of a general might be the head- 
quarters of a railway contractor, with its maps, 
plans, clerks, typewriters, and innumerable tele- 
phones. There is nearly always a wireless sta- 
tion outside, where the various communiques can 
be read. 

My experience of such headquarters, and I 
have been to a good many, is that there is ap- 
parently less excited discussion of the particular 
battle than you may witness at home between any 
two people talking of it in the club or railway 
train. There is no lack of information, because 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 49 

the staff at headquarters is Hnked up by long- 
distance and other telephones with the soldier in 
the field. There is generally distributed each 
day a little bulletin giving the soldier some idea 
of what is going on. Otherwise, existing as he 
does in a line that is hundreds of miles in length, 
he would have the vaguest notion of what is tak- 
ing place. Indeed, it is the newspaper that has 
come from London or from Paris which is his 
chief source of information, for in those great 
centres all the news of the war is collected, ex- 
plained by maps, and put forth in a way that 
makes it extremely easy for the soldier on the 
spot to understand. I followed the battle of Ver- 
dun from a large staff map, but also from maps 
cut from London newspapers, which I found to 
be wonderfully accurate. 

Once inside the final cordon of sentries, the 
civilian at the war attracts but very little atten- 
tion. People do not know who he is and do not 
care, but they realise that he could not have got 
there without proper authority, and as every- 
body is very busy with his own part of the great 
affair, the civilian sinks into the comparative in- 
significance which he should rightly occupy. My 
own personal feeling was one of regret that I was 
not able to do something to help in what was go- 
ing on. 

When I reached the battle of Verdun I was 



50 AT THE WAR 

confused at first as to what was happening; but I 
had with me two most excellent young officers 
who explained the position. I was reluctant to 
use their services, and was relieved to find that 
while showing me what was taking place, which 
they did by signs, for the noise was sometimes 
too great to permit conversation except in yells, 
they were carrying out part of their appointed 
work of observation and were busily making 
notes. 

Does the civilian incur danger in war? It is, 
of course, the object of military authorities to see 
that he is kept as safe as possible, but in these 
days of snipers, stray bullets, shell fragments, 
and what not, he must share to some extent, how- 
ever carefully guarded, the dangers of the day. 
I have had a number of narrow escapes in the 
war. Everybody has had. I did not like it. I 
do not believe that any one does. I cannot con- 
ceive that anybody likes to be in a village that is 
being shelled, or in an open space that is being 
shelled, or in a motor-car going along a road that 
is being shelled. I have noticed that the older 
and more experienced the soldier, the less he takes 
chances. There are chances even in looking 
through periscopes at a considerable distance 
from the enemy. 

There are chances in sheltering behind the 
walls of shelled towns, for the freaks of shell 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 51 

fragments are extraordinary, as are the freaks 
of artillery bombardment. In some villages one 
will find the whole of both sides of a street down, 
with the exception of, here and there, a cottage 
absolutely untouched. The effect on the earth 
of one of these terrific bombardments is to fur- 
row it, plough it, and make deep holes in it, as 
though some upheaval of Nature had taken place. 
Occasionally one will find a whole area bom- 
barded entirely out of recognition — buildings, 
trees, and trenches so smashed and destroyed as 
to give much the effect of the two scenes of earth- 
quake I have witnessed in the course of my trav- 
els. Very often, owing to mis-information, the 
enemy has bombarded for two or three days 
points that have not been occupied at all. It is 
not true that every bullet has its billet, and that 
every shell does material damage. Men are so 
clever in concealing the whereabouts of them- 
selves and their guns in the present kind of war- 
fare that I do not suppose one shell in a hun- 
dred has any bearing upon a military result. A 
great many of the people who read these lines 
will have seen shells made, and one regrets the 
waste of human effort in this horrible, but, im- 
fortunately, necessary business. 

When I first went into the war zones in the 
early days of the great conflict the soldiers were 
as strange to the war as civilians are now, but 



52 AT THE WAR 

they have learned much. Above all, they have 
learned never to show themselves. They are in- 
finitely more careful than is a civilian on his first 
visit. ''We never go along such and such a route 
on a dry day," said an officer, "because the dust 
raised by the motor reveals our presence. . . . 
We never go along that road at night because 
the Germans believe we bring up supplies or re- 
liefs by that route. . . . We long ago ceased 
wearing that kind of cap, because, when wet, the 
sun glistens on it and it forms a kind of helio- 
graph." 

Of the many devices to trick and deceive the 
enemy I will not speak. They have multiplied 
amazingly during the long, weary months since 
the beginning of the war. I believe the British 
Army, with the Canadians and Australians, is 
pre-eminent in inventing all kinds of surprises. 
I have elsewhere referred to the fact that Ger- 
man prisoners at Verdun spoke to me of their 
satisfaction at being away from Ypres, where the 
ferocious British are! Our soldiers are individ- 
ual. They embark on little individual enter- 
prises. The German, though a good soldier 
when advancing with numbers under strict dis- 
cipline, is not so clever at these devices. He was 
never taught them before the war, and his whole 
training from childhood upwards has been to 
obey, and to obey in numbers. He has not played 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 53 

individual games. Football, which develops in- 
dividuality, has only been introduced into Ger- 
many in comparatively recent times. His amuse- 
ments have been gymnastic discipline to the word 
of command, and swimming and diving displays 
of like kind, at which the Germans are very won- 
derful. It is a grave reflection on the deeds of 
British or French soldiers to say that the Ger- 
mans are not brave. They are brave, but in a 
way different from our kind of bravery. They 
do not take war in the British spirit, which they 
consider to be frivolous and too much akin to 
sport, or in the French spirit, which is that of 
the fierceness that comes to men who are defend- 
ing their native land. 

*J% *j» *Ji S!^ 

Germans are naturally, so far as the Prussians 
and Bavarians are concerned, extremely cruel. 
German non-commissioned officers when taken 
prisoners with their men treat their private sol- 
diers with a bullying savagery that is astonish- 
ing, and officer prisoners decline absolutely to pay 
any attention to their men, even though they have 
been wounded. A French officer, who had been 
taken prisoner by the Germans, told me that 
though the Germans treated their lightly wounded 
men with extreme care, because they wished to 
get them back into the firing-line quickly, the very 
badly wounded cases were neglected until the 
last. 



54 AT THE WAR 

Indeed, the wounded man is not the hero in 
war that we make him at home. He is well looked 
after, but the chief object of an army is to get 
fit men where they can do most work, and to get 
them forward as rapidly as possible. Thus it is 
that the advance of new men to the battle from 
places where they are being rested, together with 
their supplies, takes precedence of everything on 
the road or railway. The object of both sides is 
to win, and while, as I say, every care is taken 
of the wounded, priority is given to the forward- 
ing of fighting men. 

France is so well supplied with roads that often 
as not a certain road is reserved for traffic going 
to the battle, and another for that which is re- 
turning. I often wonder what would happen if 
war were to take place in England, with our 
small, narrow lanes and well-kept but illogically 
arranged roadways. There w^ould be beyond 
question an immense and dangerous congestion 
of traffic. The road, say, from London to Dover, 
one of the principal highways in England, is in 
one part extremely narrow and tortuous. I pre- 
sume the authorities have thought out all these 
things, but it is a fact, which any foreigner can 
detect by looking at our maps, that we are not 
well provided with strategic railways or strategic 
roads. In France they have also the great ad- 
vantage of wonderful canals, not the ditches to 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 55 

which we give that appellation here, but wide 
waterways carrying barges, which, turned into 
hospitals, have been of the greatest use in the 
transport of cases requiring great care. These 
floating hospitals are quiet, cool, and well venti- 
lated, and have been of great utility. 

As the war has progressed, and one must al- 
ways bear in mind that each month has changed 
it, there has been a great development of air 
fighting. The first air fight I witnessed was a 
very vague affair, in which neither side seemed 
to do very much, but every pair of eyes for miles 
was watching it. To-day air fights are very com- 
mon occurrences, and on the whole are most dra- 
matic and interesting to watch, but they do not 
engage anything like the attention they origi- 
nally did. The fighting aeroplane, with its handy 
machine-gun so arranged that it can assail the 
enemy from many angles, is developing every 
month. It used to be said that the air was the 
safest place in the war. That is no longer true. 
A great French general, who knew what he was 
talking about, told me that the air fighters were, 
he thought, the most courageous men of all. 
When I looked at the modern fighting aeroplane, 
described in the next chapter, with its 200 h.p. 
engine, and compared it with the planes of seven 
or eight years ago in which I made a few flights, 
I realise that war has developed the aeroplane 



56 AT THE WAR 

at a speed that would not have been possible in 
peace-time. Yet even now human ingenuity has 
not been able to invent an aeroplane that can 
hover or keep even relatively still in the air. 

He ^ * * H^ 

Bvery one of my readers should carefully think 
over and discuss the future of the British Islands 
and the British Umpire in viezu of the develop- 
ments of war in the air. Let it be realised that 
the practical aeroplane is not yet ten years old, 
that already our shores are within less than 
twenty minutes by air from the Continent of 
Europe. Let it be realised that aeroplanes are 
very cheap to make and will become cheaper. 
The vast change that this invention has produced 
in the position of England does not even now 
seem to be understood by one person in a hun- 
dred. 

The war zone is a world apart. After a few 
days' immersion therein one becomes so com- 
pletely absorbed in the activities around that the 
outer world is entirely forgotten. There is prac- 
tically no night or day in that curious land, and 
there is sometimes as much activity in the hours 
of darkness as in the hours of daylight. There 
are none of the long reliefs from fighting that 
were experienced so lately as the Napoleonic 
wars. There is no longer a going into winter 
quarters. The battle of Verdun was commenced 



A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 57 

in the freezing month of February. The strain 
of modern warfare is, therefore, so great that I 
am of the opinion that as much leave as possi- 
ble should be given to the men, and more to of- 
ficers — and especially to officers of the higher 
command. I know this is not the view of those 
who think that continued absences make for slack 
discipline. I have not observed or heard of any 
actual cases of weakness in discipline due to holi- 
day. I have, however, met at the Front many 
men I knew in peace-time who are showing sign 
of war fatigue, and a tired man is of no use in 
war or any other worldly affair. 

Two years ago very few people had any idea 
of the nature of the coming warfare. Not one 
modern military writer gave warning of the in- 
tensity of the attention with which each army 
would watch the other at close range and with 
all kinds of new and unexpected weapons. 



WARPLANES 



WARPLANES 
Some: of the: Type:s 

Like: the modern machine-gun, and other war 
developments, the aeroplane began in the United 
States. The two brothers Wright, of Dayton, 
Ohio, were the men who revolutionised the busi- 
ness of war. I have often wondered if in the 
Wrights' early experiments at Kittyhawk, Vir- 
ginia, they realised to the full the tremendous 
weapon they were placing in the hands of the 
modern artilleryman. 

I knew Wilbur Wright and saw some of the 
beginnings of aviation. Orville, the remaining 
brother, has behaved with great generosity to 
us in the disposal of the British patents. We 
have as yet accorded no national recognition to 
the Wrights. 

Jl* ^» ^» ^C ^c 

There are four purposes in the war to which 
the invention of those modest inventors has been 
put, and each purpose is in itself a revolutionary 
change in warfare. On the whole I should say 
that the direction of artillery fire is the chief 
result as yet attained by the use of the Wrights' 

61 



62 AT THE WAR 

invention. Artillery work has, of course, pro- 
duced by far the greatest amount of damage on 
land since the war began. Without the aero- 
plane big guns would be of little use except 
against objects visible to the artilleryman. With 
the aeroplane, from which signals can be made 
either by wireless or by day electric heliographs, 
the artilleryman soon learns his errors, and, 
owing to the precision of modern weapons, can 
follow with amazing sureness the advice of the 
aeroplane observer. 

The type of machine used for observing, like 
all the latest patterns of warplanes, is now ar- 
moured with steel in its most vulnerable parts 
and provided with a machine-gun in case it should 
be attacked. These observing aeroplanes should 
be able, as far as is yet possible, to hover in the 
air in order that the man with the telescope who 
sits in front or behind the pilot may be able to 
see as accurately as possible where the shells are 
falling. But the observing aeroplane has to be 
sufficiently rapid to escape the fighting plane that 
will most certainly be sent up after it as speedily 
as it is discovered. 

A second type comprise the fighting planes. 

These should be armed as heavily as possible, 
and it is no secret that the French are putting 
quite large cannon in aeroplanes. They may be 
managed by one, two or three men, and in certain 
types each of the men can be a combatant. In 



WARPLANES 63 

this matter of adaptability of aeroplanes to air 
fighting the French, who speedily developed the 
Wrights' invention, took the lead. 

Such machines are fitted with searchlights 
worked from dynamos driven by little windmills 
in the planes. They are provided with either a 
small cannon or one or two machine-guns, and the 
fighting man is further armed with a long-dis- 
tance revolver. His work is the most danger- 
ous in the war. It is a game for young men 
only and for the very pick of the human race as 
regards quickness, audacity, knowledge of en- 
gine, coolness, resource, and good shooting. 
Such a man must be prepared, if necessary, to 
dive head foremost one or two thousand feet at 
the enemy. He is the man on whom we rely to 
kill the Zeppelins. 

The early air duels were of slow movement. 
The battles of to-day resemble the swift flight 
of the swallow and the swoop of the hawk. 

I am indebted to the French authorities for 
opportunity of close study of their machines and 
methods. 

I have also seen something of the splendid 
work of our R.F.C. in France. 

Air fighting is changing so rapidly that the 
attempt at simplification of a complex and new 
arm may be out of date before the book is out 
of the hands of the binders. 

The vital factor of the aeroplane — and this 



64 AT THE WAR 

applies to all the four types with which I am deal- 
ing — is the engine, its capacity and weight. The 
heavier the engine the slower the machine's abil- 
ity to rise and the less gun-weight and ammu- 
nition and petrol it can carry. 

A third type of aeroplane, which has attracted 
most attention but has not really been so im- 
portant as the first and second types I have de- 
scribed, is the bomb-dropper. At the beginning of 
the war bomb-dropping was very effective, be- 
cause the flyers, in the absence of efficient anti- 
aircraft artillery, were able to fly low and aim 
carefully at ammunition depots, railroad junc- 
tions, Zeppelin sheds, and other fairly large ob- 
jects. Some of the early flying was done at 
merely six thousand feet from the ground. Anti- 
aircraft guns speedily caused the airmen to fly 
much higher, and to-day, at twelve to fifteen 
thousand feet, they have little chance of aiming 
with such degree of precision. They can hit a 
town, of course, but to damage a particular 
building in a town is more or less chance work. 
Flying at this height an aeroplane could per- 
haps hit Waterloo Station or the Stock Ex- 
change district, but it could not with certainty 
locate, let us say, a particular building like St. 
Paul's. 

In addition to the height at which the machine 
must fly to avoid guns, there has to be a large 
allowance made for windage, and also recognition 



WARPLANES 65 

of the fact that the aeroplane itself is flying at 
from forty to fifty miles an hour while it is 
dropping the bombs. As a rule, the raids of 
bomb-droppers are now undertaken by twenty to 
thirty machines, which fly in the form of a 
wedge, with a leader in front. The bomb- 
droppers are often protected by fighting planes, 
though every bomb-dropper carries his own ma- 
chine-gun for self-defense. 

Almost the most interesting utilisation of the 
aeroplane is for photographic scouting. I well 
remember discussing the uses of the aeroplane 
with the brothers Wright, when, in reply to the 
criticism of some one present as to the danger 
of scouting by aeroplane, they pointed out that, 
after all, one aeroplane would be able to do more 
scouting than a whole squadron of cavalry. 
Events have proved that they were more than 
right, because the scouting aeroplane carries with 
it not only human eyes but the eyes of a camera, 
and in no department of war work has there 
been greater progress during the last few months 
than in photography by aeroplane. At the head- 
quarters of each army are large plans of the op- 
posing enemy trenches and also of suspected gun 
positions. These are corrected at regular in- 
tervals, when the weather is suitable, by pho- 
tographs taken with telescopic lenses, these pho- 
tographs being speedily developed, printed, en- 



66 AT THE WAR 

larged, and used for bringing up to date our 
knowledge of the enemy line. 

To deceive the aeroplane observers each side 
resorts to all kinds of tricks. There are dummy 
guns that actually fire, and, of course, there are 
endless ordinary dummy guns of wood. 

A use to which the aeroplane has not yet been 
effectively put is sea observation. The British 
Navy has aeroplanes and seaplanes, and excellent 
ones too — all the navies of the world have aero- 
planes — but these cannot leave, or return, to 
water in rough weather. Experiments have been 
tried in the United States, France, and England 
for starting aeroplanes from ships. There is a 
fruitful field for the inventor who can perfect 
this scheme, not on paper but in practice. An 
aeroplane can fly in almost any weather. A Zep- 
pelin or other airship is at the mercy of the wind. 
The man who perfects a means of releasing an 
aeroplane from a battleship and providing for its 
safe return in any weather in which ships can 
fight will achieve a revolution in sea warfare as 
important as the aeroplane has created in war 
on land. 



SIR DOUGLAS HAIG 



SIR DOUGLAS HAIG 

Some: Impre:ssions 

Wh^n history relates the story of the great 
battles of the Somme, it will tell how Sir Doug- 
las Haig and his Staff had their Headquarters 
in a modest dwelling, part of which was still 
occupied by the family who owned it. 

Thus it is that the voices of children running 
up and down the corridors mingle with the cease- 
less murmur of the guns and the work of the 
earnest little company of men whose labours are 
never out of the thoughts of their countrymen 
throughout the Empire. 

The head of this band of brothers, the Com- 
mander-in-Chief of an Army ten times larger 
than that of the great Duke, is Sir Douglas Haig, 
well known to his troops from the base to the 
front, though hardly known at all to the masses 
of his fellow-subjects at home. 

In these days of instant communication by tele- 
phone, despatch rider, telegraph, or wireless, a 
greater part of the life of the Commander-in- 
Chief is spent at his Headquarter offices. In 
times of stress he rarely moves from them. Out- 

69 



70 AT THE WAR 

wardly the life of Sir Douglas Halg might seem 
to be that of some great Scotch laird who chooses 
to direct his estates himself. 

At exactly five and twenty minutes past eight 
each morning Sir Douglas joins his immediate 
Staff at the usual informal breakfast of English 
life. Though he has selected his Staff, without 
fear or favour, from the best elements of the 
British Armies that have been tried for two 
years in the field, there is something indefinably 
Scottish in the atmosphere of his table. The 
Commander-in-Chief is of an ancient Scottish 
family born in the kingdom of Fife, so that the 
spear of our British offensive is tipped with that 
which is considered to be more adamant than the 
granite of Aberdeen. Lithe and alert, Sir Doug- 
las is known for his distinguished bearing and 
good looks. He has blue eyes and an unusual 
facial angle, delicately-chiselled features, and a 
chin to be reckoned with. There is a characteris- 
tic movement of the hands when explaining 
things. 

Sir Douglas does not waste words. It is not 
because he is silent or unsympathetic — it is be- 
cause he uses words as he uses soldiers, sparingly, 
but always with method. When he is interested 
in his subject, as in talking of his gratitude to 
and admiration of the new armies and their of- 
ficers, or in testifying to the stubborn bravery of 
the German machine-gunners, it is not difficult 



SIR DOUGLAS HAIG 71 

to discern from his accent that he is what is 
known North of the Tweed as a Fifer. A Fifer 
is one of the many types that have helped to 
build up the Empire, and is probably the best of 
all for dealing with the Prussian. First of all 
in the armoury of the Fifer is patience, then 
comes oblivion to all external surroundings and 
pressure, with a supreme concentration on the 
object to be attained. Fifeshire is the home of 
the national game of Scotland; and it is the im- 
perturbability of the Fifer that makes him so dif- 
ficult to beat in golf, in affairs, and in war. Be- 
hind the dourness of the man of the East Coast 
is the splendid enthusiasm that occasion some- 
times demands, though there is no undue depres- 
sion or elation at an unexpected bunker or an 
even unusually fortunate round. 

While I was with the little family party at 
Headquarters there came news that was good, 
and some that was not so good. Neither affected 
the Commander-in-Chief's attitude towards the 
war, nor the day's work, in the least degree what- 
ever. There are all sorts of minor criticisms of 
the Commander-in-Chief at home, mainly because 
the majority of the people know nothing about 
him. He is probably not interested in home com- 
ments, but is concerned that the Empire should 
know of the unprecedented valour of his officers 
and men. Consequently the doings of the Army 
are put before the world each day with the frank- 



72 AT THE WAR 

ness that is part of Sir Douglas Haig's own char- 
acter. He is opposed to secrecy except where 
military necessity occasions it. He dislikes secret 
reports on officers. Those who visit him are 
treated with great candour, and there is always 
a suitable selection of guests at Headquarters to 
bring variety to the meal-times of men who are 
engaged in their all-absorbing tasks. If they are 
interested in any particular part of the organi- 
sation, medical, transport, artillery, strategy, they 
are invited to ask questions and, if possible, to 
suggest. In many large houses of business there 
is a suggestion-box in which the staff or em- 
ployes are invited to put forward their ideas in 
writing. I do not know whether there is such an 
institution in the Army, but certainly all sorts 
of new ideas are discussed at the table at General 
Headquarters. In every case "Can it be done?" 
takes precedence of "It can't be done." 

Nor, despite the fact that the Commander-in- 
Chief is a Cavalry officer, does he show any ob- 
session with the arm with which the greater part 
of his military life has had to deal. Surrounded 
by a group of the best experts our Empire can 
provide, most of whom have had 24 months' war 
experience, he is in conference with them from 
morning till late at night. During his daily ex- 
ercise ride he has one or other of his staff experts 
with him. The wonderful system of communica- 
tion established throughout the length and 



SIR DOUGLAS HAIG 73 

breadth of his zone has linked up the whole mili- 
tary machine so effectively that information can 
be gained instantly from most distant and diffi- 
cult parts of his line of operations or communica- 
tions. In the ante-chambers of the Commander- 
in-Chief ^s small working-room the telephone is 
rarely silent; and a journey into many parts of 
his Army proved to me that out of the two years' 
struggle have emerged men, and often very young 
men, able to do the Commander-in-Chief's bid- 
ding or to furnish him with what he desires. Out 
of the necessary chaos of a war that was unex- 
pected, save by the Army and a few prescient stu- 
dents, have emerged Armies in which Scottish 
precision and courage, English dash and tenacity, 
Irish defiance and devotion, Australian and Cana- 
dian fierce gallantry all play their proper parts. 
Sir Douglas Haig is fifty-four years of age. 
Many of his staff are greatly his junior. They 
are a grave and serious body of men who have in- 
spired confidence from one end of the line to the 
other. They are not dull, there is plenty of fa- 
miliar badinage at the proper time. There is 
deep devotion and loyalty in their labours. 

It is said that most of them have aged a little in 
their ceaseless round of work and anxiety, but 
they are all at a period of life when responsibility 
can best be borne. "War," says Sir Douglas 
Haig, "is a young man's game." He made that 
remark in regard to General Trenchard's young 



74 AT THE WAR 

airmen, of whom all at the front are so proud. 
A soldier who had fought in the first battle of 
Ypres spoke to me of the Commander-in-Chief as 
follows : — 

It was just when the Germans had broken 
our line and little parties of our men were 
retreating. At that moment Sir Douglas 
Haig, then commanding the First Corps, 
came along the Menin road with an escort 
of his own 17th Lancers, all as beautifully 
turned out as in peace time. They ap- 
proached slowly, and the effect upon our re- 
treating men was instantaneous. As Sir 
Douglas advanced they gathered and fol- 
lowed him. In the event the Worcesters 
attacked Gheluvelt, which had been taken by 
the enemy, drove them out, and restored the 
line. The Commander-in-Chief's presence 
was, and is, a talisman of strength to his 
armies. 

On the last night of my visit to this little com- 
pany I was walking with one of his circle in the 
gardens, watching the flashing of the guns, which 
looked like summer lightning flickering continu- 
ously. We had been talking of many things 
other than war, though the war was never out of 
our ears, for the throbbing was perpetual. It 
was late, for the warm night was a temptation to 
sauntering and exchange of views. 



SIR DOUGLAS HAIG 75 

As we passed through the hall on our way up- 
stairs the door of the Commander-in-Chief's 
room was open. We paused for a moment to 
watch him bending over the map on which the 
whole world is gazing to-day, the map which he 
is slowly and surely altering for the benefit of 
civilisation and the generations unborn. He was 
about to begin his nightly vigil. 



JOFFRE 



JOFFRE 
The: Creator oi? the: French GE:Ni:RAiy Sta^ip 

From the newspaper headlines to the Man, 
from the hurrying tide of early morning clerkdom 
in the London streets, to the good-byes of the 
morning train to the front ; from the Red Cross 
stir of busy Boulogne, now become our greatest 
hospital; past the cheery ranks of the newly- 
landed Territorial battalion, singing their way up 
one of the rare hills of old Flanders; a rush along 
the long straight roads of Picardy through vil- 
lages packed with waiting Turcos, Zouaves, Lan- 
cers, Artillery men, in French blue or the new 
khaki, to the strange calm of the Grand Quartier- 
General of the French Army. 

It is considered indiscreet to indicate the Gen- 
eral Headquarters of an army these days, though 
the Germans always know their exact location, 
and we know theirs. Suffice it to say that the 
General Headquarters of the French Army are 
at a spot and in a building well known to English 
people. There are very few of us who have seen 
it in its present astonishing quietude. 

The pride and panoply of war have gone, even 

79 



80 AT THE WAR 

if they ever existed. A visit to General Joffre, 
save for the presence of one or two orderlies at 
the gate, is just an ordinary visit at an ordinary 
hotel. Pere Joffre, who has the destinies of 
France in his hands, received me at the appointed 
hour to the minute, in a tiny room with a long 
narrow table covered with a white felt top, a 
room probably sixteen feet long by twelve wide, 
perfectly plain, and most likely one of the serv- 
ants' offices in the hotel days of the hotel where 
his Headquarters are situated. 

When I revisted him the other day I found 
that he had exchanged that very humble apart- 
ment for one rather more suitable to the needs of 
a man who has to receive commissions and depu- 
tations as part of his daily routine. It is even yet 
a simple milieu for the head of one of the might- 
iest forces in the world. I emphasise this fact 
because there appears to be some sort of curious, 
all-prevailing belief in the public mind that army 
headquarters are abodes of luxury. 

The Generalissimo arrives at his bureau at 
6.30 every morning, and at 7 he has a conference 
with the six leading officials of the General Staff, 
or Grand fitat Major, and his two aides, both gen- 
erals, and three other officers. At this conference 
all the reports and despatches of the night are 
gone through and discussed, and orders given for 
the day. Lunch is served always at 11, and al- 
ways consists of the same menu of eggs and cut- 



JOFFRE 81 

lets, after which, at 12 o'clock, there is another 
conference. At i the General goes out till 4. He 
either walks or drives, generally in the adjacent 
woods. At 8.30 there is the third conference, at- 
tended by the same people, and at 9 punctually, 
no matter what happens, the General goes to bed. 
The rest of the day he stays in his room poring 
over the maps. He remains all the time at his 
Headquarters, save once a week, when he goes to 
the front to inspect the troops or to see generals. 
A very efficient telephone service renders more 
frequent departure from Headquarters unneces- 
sary. 

His methods are well illustrated by his pro- 
cedure at the Battle of the Marne. All the orders 
written by himself were already drawn up on 
August 27 for the action which began on Sep- 
tember 5. He pondered them all out, and then 
pieced the whole battle together bit by bit, like a 
delicate piece of mechanism which, when the time 
came, ran like clockwork. 

His great work in the French Army was the 
organisation of the General Staff when he be- 
came Commandant-en-Chef in July, 191 1. To 
this is due the success of the French armies 
against the Germans, for the staffs were com- 
posed of men who had worked together for three 
years and are employed now over country which 
they know. 

Joffre wears a pale blue vareuse or tunic, of 



82 AT THE WAR 

very ample proportions, no decorations, save three 
gold stars on his arm and on the cuffs, and the red 
trousers with the black stripe. 

As that great, grey head rose from the writing- 
table the impression of the man upon me was that 
of massiveness. Uniform caps of whatever na- 
tionality have the effect of making men look more 
or less alike. The great head of Joffre, the iron 
chin, the kind, rather sad eyes, are quite unlike 
the photographs and equally unlike our stupid 
notion of what we call ''the average Frenchman." 
Pere Joffre is from Rivesaltes, in the Pyrenees- 
Orientales, and he speaks slowly, and with no 
more gesture than a Scotsman, in the rich accent 
of the Midi. 

Joffre has emerged as one of the great person- 
alities of the war. Every German prisoner cap- 
tured knows the name and fame of "Shoffer." 
Frequently in the little messages that the Ger- 
mans shoot with bows and arrows into the French 
lines is the remark, "Ask your General Joffre why 
he is letting you Frenchmen get killed for the 
sake of the English." There is an idea always 
floating in the German mind, from the highest 
quarters in the Wilhelmstrasse to the trenches 
in the Woevre, that Germany will be able to effect 
a separate peace with France. Should there exist 
in that deluded nation of 70 millions any single 
individual with a knowledge of French psychol- 



JOFFRE 83 

ogy, a glance at Joffre should be sufficient to 
teach him otherwise. 

Often in years back, discussing the war that 
was to be, we had whispered, "Yes, but will the 
French produce a man ?" One basic fact in this 
matter is that the French have thrown up not one 
man but several. 

"How is he bearing the war?" people asked me 
in Paris. I can truly say that General Joffre in 
the heat of the Battle of Verdun looks strong, 
well, and cheerful. On my previous visit I 
thought he was showing signs of war fatigue. 
To-day, in the midst of the colossal series of bat- 
tles that has lasted for months, the head of the 
wonderful French war machine has the healthy 
look of a country squire in those good old days, 
two years ago, when men rode to hounds a couple 
of days a week. 



CADORNA 



CADORNA 

Humorous, Adamant and Subti,^ 

A SHORT, lithe, quick-moving man of sixty-six, 
General Cadorna is the most humorous of all the 
generals in the Great War. He has a glitter in 
his grey eyes that reminded me of those of the 
late Pierpont Morgan. The resemblance applies 
also to the character of the two men, for Mr. 
Morgan was ruthless and kind, and adamant, too, 
when necessary. Those are the characteristics 
of Italy's great general, liked, feared, and re- 
spected by every Italian soldier or civilian with 
whom I conversed. 

The Italian and British armies have reached 
their perfection along very similar roads, but the 
difficulties of the Italians were greater than ours. 
We were unprepared, but united; Italy was un- 
prepared and distracted by faction. 

Among those who accomplished what looked 
like the impossible — a quickly improvised defence 
of Italy against her time-honoured enemy, Aus- 
tria — Luigi Cadorna must be given first place. 
With his must be coupled the name of his King, 
for the King of Italy is not only nominally but 

87 



88 AT THE WAR 

really the head of the Italian Army, and Cadorna 
is his Chief of Staff. The Italian monarch is so 
modest and self-eft"acing that he is comparatively 
little known to his own people, though well un- 
derstood by his soldiers, who see him continually. 

He and Cadorna share an advantage not given 
to most of us in Great Britain. They have been 
close to the enemy so long that they understand 
the enemy psychology. It surprised the rest of 
the world that the taking of Gorizia should be 
followed by an attempt to bomb St. Mark's at 
Venice. It surprised us that the Germans should 
essay to offset the defeat of the Marne by the 
destruction of the cathedral at Reims. These 
things do not astonish the Italians and the 
French; indeed, they expect them. 

As one travels about the world and encounters 
the busiest people in it, they all seem to share the 
same characteristic. They all so economise their 
time that they have moments for cigars and dis- 
course. That was so with Mr. Morgan. (And 
the blackness of those cigars!) That is so with 
Count Cadorna. He gave me an hour and a half 
one day, in which he did all the interviewing, and 
a very merry luncheon on another day at which 
he kept his table amused all the time. 

His quarters are at Udine, at about the usual 
distance of most headquarters from the firing 
line, to which the great captain pays visits long 
before most of us are awake. 



CADORNA 89 

He is a general who believes in seeing for him- 
self. He took personal part in the direction of 
the final battle for Gorizia, climbing the ghastly 
hill of Podgora with the vigour of an Alpini, 
He is a close student of war, and he has all the 
subtlety of the Italian. In the long story of the 
last two years he is almost the only general who 
devised a surprise, described elsewhere in this 
book. 

Nearly all the men at the extreme top of the 
war know something about the whole war. That 
is not the case with the minor personalities, even 
in the Higher Command. Many generals, in sur- 
veying their own small piece of the front, think 
the whole war is there, and judge its success or 
duration by their own little piece of landscape. 
It is they who, when on leave, tell us cheerfully 
that the war is nearly over, or gloomily that the 
Boche line is impenetrable. Their words are 
whispered far and wide, and are part of the cause 
of the rumours and counter rumours of the clubs 
and dinner tables. 

Cadorna knows the size of the war as accurate- 
ly as Joffre or Haig. He knows about things 
with which the average soldier does not con- 
cern himself, such as the effect of German prop- 
aganda in the United States and the value of a 
counter effort over there that could be put forth 
by the Italians resident in that country. He 
knows that the Battle of the Somme is part of 



90 AT THE WAR 

the Battle of the Carso. He is a statesman, too, 
as well as a soldier, and like all Italians, happy 
to be in alliance with us. His communiques are 
meticulously accurate. 

It seems strange to us that a boy should begin 
to learn soldiering at ten, but that is what Ca- 
dorna did, for in i860 he went to the Military 
School at Milan, where he was sent by his distin- 
guished parents, Count Raffaele Cadorna, who 
had married Countess Clementina Zoppi — names 
of note in Italian history. 

At fifteen he proceeded to the Military Acade- 
my at Turin. At the age of forty- two he had at- 
tained the rank of colonel in command of the 
loth Bersaglieri. For some years afterwards he 
was engaged on his famous "Manual of Tactics," 
which has been reprinted again and again dur- 
ing the war, with very little alteration from the 
original edition. 

Cadorna sets his face against personal or fam- 
ily favouritism. It is in the blood. In 1870 he 
had become his father's A.D.C., but as soon as 
there was active work to do, he was given the 
command of the troops which entered Rome in 
the War of Liberation, the older Cadorna dis- 
pensed with his son's services. Last year the 
present General Cadorna had his son Raffaele as 
one of his A.D.C.'s, and following the family 
example, he sent the boy back to his regiment 
directly Italy entered the lists. 



CADORNA 91 

With His Excellency General Cadorna (to give 
him his Italian prefix) is General Porro, and 
along the whole of the Italian front are gen- 
erals who have arrived at their position by the 
ruthless process of elimination necessary to suc- 
cess in war. Some of the earlier generals made 
mistakes and are gone, as with our army. War 
is just what it always was, and victory is for 
those who make the fewest mistakes. 

One conviction one had in bidding farewell to 
that determined-looking Italian, Luigi Cadorna, 
was that though genial and full of amusing anec- 
dote, he will not suffer fools gladly. His tele- 
grams of praise and reprimand, some of which 
I saw on my visits to the various fronts, were 
models of terseness, written frankly, almost bru- 
tally indeed — as a soldier should. 



UNDER THE SIX STARS 



UNDER THE SIX STARS 
A Visit to Gi:N:eRAi. Birdwood ^ 

Some;whsre: in Eranc^. 

Th£J high hopes of the Australasian peoples 
are centred round a bare room in one of the num- 
berless Erench chateaux where, nowadays, the 
air vibrates with the throbbing of the guns. In 
that small room, the furniture principally con- 
sisting of the simplest possible bed, a telephone, 
and a map marked with the latest moves on the 
battle line, is General Birdwood, the idol of the 
Anzacs. 

An officer from Victoria received me at the gate 
of the chateau, where stood on guard two Aus- 
tralian giants having before them a fluttering 
flag of the Six Stars. It was a muggy morning, 
reminding the officer of October in his own coun- 
try in the late shearing time. We passed through 
one of the halls of the chateau where numbers of 
the clerical staff were busy at typewriting and 
telephones, and then upstairs to the General's 
room. 

^ The following cable despatch was written by request 
for the Sydney Sun and other leading Australasian 
journals. 

95 



96 AT THE WAR 

General Birdwood stands 5ft. Qin., has not an 
ounce of spare fat on him, and is a man in hard 
training. He has a strong but gentle voice, firm 
mouth with a slight moustache, deep-set pale blue 
eyes, and a cropped head. He looks a fighter 
every inch of him. He is fifty years of age, and 
has been engaged directly or indirectly in the 
business of war during most of his adult life. He 
eats and drinks little, is up and away at daylight 
in winter and before six in summer. He pushes 
his Headquarters as near the front as possible, 
knows many of his "boys," as he calls them, who 
fought with him in the Gallipoli Peninsula, by 
their Christian names, and they believe in him 
as implicitly as he believes in them. 

Birdwood, erect in pale khaki coat with some 
four rows of well-earned ribbons, cord riding- 
breeches and riding-boots, is not a man to lose a 
moment of time. He was just ofif to meet the 
boys back for rest from Pozieres. They were 
camping in some woods to which we drove in his 
open car, which flies the Australian flag. Some 
of them had already arrived. The sun, which 
had been absent for some days, came out at this 
moment, and never do I remember seeing a more 
delightful sylvan scene than that presented by 
these battle-worn but merry soldiers with their 
booty of German helmets and caps, German 
drums, and German field-glasses, riding and 
walking up to their huts and tents. Some had 



UNDER THE SIX STARS 97 

already arrived and were boiling their tea, mak- 
ing dampers, cooking beef in the cookers they 
extemporised from kerosene tins, and eating 
keenly and heartily after their long, long vigil 
in the heavily-shelled trenches. 

As the General stepped out of his car he was 
instantly recognised by his men, most of them 
from New South Wales, who had been engaged 
in what was probably their hardest fight since 
Gallipoli. They had dug themselves in deeply 
the other side of Pozieres, and had not left their 
trenches for days. "My boys are good diggers," 
remarked the General. ''They dig deep and 
quickly, and their trenches are so clean that you 
could eat ofif them at dinner time." He ad- 
dressed his soldiers simply and truly, and drew, 
first from one and then from another, stories of 
the fierce fighting they had just experienced. 
Some were so tired that we had passed them 
asleep just as they had arrived, others were full 
of life and gaiety, and as Captain MacKenzie, 
of the Salvation Army, known throughout the 
peninsula and in France as "Mac," said, many 
were already anxious to get back to the firing 
line and show the Germans that if they were look- 
ing for more trouble they could get it. 

I regarded with interest these already hard- 
ened warriors for whom death, wounds, and the 
German guns held no fear. A good deal has been 
said of Australian discipline. English Austra- 



98 AT THE WAR 

Hans who were among them told me that when it 
comes to fighting, their discipline is as rigid as 
the most adamant commander could wish. They 
obey their officers implicitly from the moment 
serious business begins, and their relations with 
the Imperial officers are perfect. The fact that 
the young English schoolboys and slightly older 
lads who man the aeroplanes have driven the 
spying German aeroplanes from the sky greatly 
rejoices them. 

Their long experiences in the trenches in Gal- 
lipoli have made them the excellent trench fight- 
ers that they are. 

I accompanied Birdwood and his Staff from 
one portion to another of the scattered forest 
scene. In some of the huts all the men were 
asleep, and Birdwood would on no account allow 
them to be disturbed, but in others they were 
merry with mouth-organs, flutes, and a captured 
drum. The General peered in, but would not al- 
low them to desist. Here and there they tem- 
porarily formed into line and saluted him as he 
approached. He had a simple speech for every 
group, always to the same effect. "You have 
suffered, but you have done splendidly. Are you 
ready for more when the time comes ?" and there 
always came a great shout of "Yes." Many were 
the stories told. One of how a mere lad, for some 
of them are extremely young, chased a huge Ger- 
man out into the open, and finally settled the ter- 



UNDER THE SIX STARS 99 

rifled Hun after a hand-to-hand bomb duel. An- 
other of how a Hun machine-gunner fired at the 
Anzacs until he had used the whole of his car- 
tridge belt, when the German threw his arms 
round the nearest Australian and called out, 
"Pardon, Kamerad." 

All the time we were talking the ''crumping", 
and booming of great guns was a reminder of our 
proximity to the terrific struggle waging at the 
moment. The men came into the wood in a con- 
stant stream. Having seen their General they 
at once went to wash and eat or sleep. Birdwood 
had always one piece of parting advice to the 
boys. "Write home. Let your mothers know 
where you are, what you are doing, and how you 
are, for if you don't write to her she will write 
to me. I get dozens of letters by every mail ask- 
ing for one or other of you." 

Once, while we were in the forest, attention 
was riveted on an air fight of which we could see 
nothing by reason of the leaves. The sharp rat- 
tle of the machine-guns high in the sky told of 
a prolonged fight whose end we afterwards were 
informed was not satisfactory to the Germans. 
It must have been a rare spectacle, for a Hun is 
not often seen to cross our lines these days. 

I left this forest scene with regret, but there 
was much to do that day. Something was in 
preparation. General Birdwood had work to at- 
tend to. He took me with him in his car, and 



100 AT THE WAR 

we passed more and more of the Anzacs on their 
way in from the battle. Some were asleep on the 
top of the highly packed general service transport 
wagons. Those in German helmets were sing- 
ing, all smiled affectionately as they saw their 
General, and saluted by a quick eyes right or the 
raising of the hand to the hat. Mounted men 
dropped their right hand sharply to the side. 

It was a long and interesting cavalcade on its 
way home from the battle. The dust, as one of 
them remarked, made him fairly homesick. All 
were in good spirits, and in spite of heavy losses 
they had done well, and their General had come 
to meet and to greet them. 

Passing through one ruined town and village 
after another we came to a divisional headquar- 
ters where, in a small house, some new movement 
to which the General had to attend was being ar- 
ranged for, and he entered a two-storey ruined 
building, a mass of telephone wires pouring in 
at the windows from every corner, and inside the 
busy click of typewriters and the voices of men 
working in the heat in their shirt sleeves. Hard 
by a great shell fell wounding several men and 
cruelly mutilating a young English officer, whom, 
in the evening, I saw being wheeled out of the 
operating theatre at a neighbouring hospital. 

General Birdwood is one of those soldiers who 
thinks it his duty to be in the firing line wherever 
possible, but his officers don't agree with him. 



UNDER THE SIX STARS 101 

Two years of acquaintanceship have endeared 
him so to them that they feel they would be lost 
without him. He has often been far too close to 
Death for their happiness, and they urged him 
not to go any farther, but to take me to the near- 
est field ambulance, which was No. 2 Australian. 
Cheerily, a slightly wounded Australian at the 
gate, in reply to a question from Birdwood as 
to how the hospital was getting on, replied, "Oh, 
we are filling up nicely. General." The ambu- 
lances arrived at the gate, and stretchers were 
carried in in less time than it takes to write it. 
The men were classified, fed, and those who 
were fit had anti-tetanus serum injected. The 
serum was administered with great care and 
speed, and the letter "T" was marked on each 
forehead in indelible pencil. Arrangements were 
being made to convey such as were well enough 
to the Casualty Clearing Station, whence they 
will go to one of the beautiful base hospitals, 
probably looking over the Atlantic, that are the 
pride of the Empire. 

We went thence to the ist Australian Field 
Ambulance. Sir Anthony Bowlby, the distin- 
guished surgeon, was just making his inspection, 
and I passed the time talking with the wounded 
lads. Some were sleeping, others in pain, but in 
general they were ready for a joke, and a talk, 
and a cigarette. "How do you like France?" 
I asked a young Victorian. "I like it fine," he re- 



102 AT THE WAR 

plied. "They can teach us something in farm- 
ing," and another one said, "Not an inch of land 
wasted. They work on the land rain or shine." 
"Girls are all right, too," put in a young giant 
from Bathurst. "Yes, I should like to take a cou- 
ple of them back," chipped in a wounded Adelai- 
der. I was duly shocked, but the compliment to 
France was sincere. 

All expressed admiration for the French, just 
as the French love the British for their kindness 
to the French children. Gallipoli, which all of 
them, Birdwood included, pronounce "Gallipli," 
afforded no rest. Here when they are not actu- 
ally fighting they have delightful resting camps 
with well-fitted canteens. 

I asked the General where these men were 
drawn from. They are of all types — clerks, 
blacksmiths, men from stations and farms. 
Many of the officers are of the same class. They 
understand and obey each other implicitly. They 
have exactly the same rations as the British sol- 
diers, and draw only a portion of their handsome 
pay. "We have had no lunch," said one of the 
Staff officers at this point. "Birdwood eats noth- 
ing, and expects us to do likewise." 

We drove away from the wounded lads along 
the encumbered roads, past miles and miles of 
wagons with the emblem of the Australian ris- 
ing sun and the New Zealand fern, and back to 
the chateau. I learnt during the ride something 



UNDER THE SIX STARS 103 

new from General Birdwood of Australasia's 
generosity to its Forces, of the promptness of the 
Australian Government in responding to his re- 
quest, of the great help of the Australian Red 
Cross. These fine soldiers are making Austra- 
lian history. They are building up the traditions 
of Australia's future armies. There is hardly 
one of them who has not patriotism burnt into 
his soul and burnt into his body. Many Austra- 
lian soldiers have tattoed on their arms the Aus- 
tralian, French, and British flags with the words 
"1915 GallipoH" underneath. 

After a long drive through the dust I shared 
a simple meal, at which tea (the national drink 
of "Down Under") duly predominated, with the 
alert and agile Chief and his Staff, and as I drove 
away many miles along the lines, I could not but 
marvel at the turn in world conditions that had 
brought these young giants from the farthest 
corner of the earth to shed their blood on behalf 
of the Powers so gallantly fighting for the great- 
est cause in the world, the cause of freedom as 
opposed to tyranny. 



THE WAR DOCTORS 



THE WAR DOCTORS 
Thi^ir Work und^r Fire; 

Among the first forces mobilised by the Ger- 
mans at the end of July, 1914, were the kinema- 
tographers and the artists. The German Empire 
has therefore a complete pictorial record of the 
war from its earliest days. We have lately be- 
gun to use the kinematograph. But we have not 
yet begun to enshrine by colour and canvas the 
lives of our men, and when we do send out a 
dozen of our best painters the War Doctor must 
be among the first to be made known and per- 
petuated. 

We are so accustomed to consider doctors as 
part of our daily lives, or as workers in speckless 
and palatial hospitals, that we have hardly yet 
visualised the man who shares the hell of the 
front trench with the fighters, armed only with 
two panniers of urgent drugs, instruments, and 
field dressings, his acetylene lamp and electric 
torch. Most of us think of his war work as be- 
ing accomplished at one of the great healing 
places at the base. 

If there be degrees of chivalry, the highest 
107 



108 AT THE WAR 

award should be accorded to the medical profes- 
sion, which at once forsook its lucrative practices 
in London, or Melbourne, or Montreal, in a great 
rally of self-sacrifice. The figures of the casual- 
ties among them bring home to those who have 
only the big hospital idea of the war doctor, sad 
facts that should lead to due understanding of 
this not sufficiently known but veritable, body of 
Knights in the Great Crusade. For the last three 
months ^ in the Royal Army Medical Corps alone, 
I account them according to the figures published 
in The Times from day to day: — 

Officers Killed 53 

Wounded 208 

" Missing 4 

N.C.O.'s and Men (R.A.M.C. 
only) : 

Killed 260 

Wounded 1,212 

Missing 3 

I propose to set down the order in which our 
medical service arranges its chain of responsibil- 
ity, premising my account by the statement that 
the medical army of to-day exceeds numerically 
the whole British military forces overseas before 
the outbreak of war. 

It is a little difficult and complex to explain. I 
^ I wrote this in September, 1916 



THE WAR DOCTORS 109 

find that there is some confusion in the pubHc 
mind as to the regimental work, that of the 
Royal Army Medical Corps, and their hand- 
maidens the British Red Cross Society and Or- 
der of St. John. But there is no confusion or 
overlapping in the zone of hostilities. 

In the preparations for the great Battle of the 
Somme, Sir Douglas Haig, thorough in this as 
in every other detail, himself co-operated with 
the medical services in arranging his regimental 
aid posts, his casualty clearing stations, and the 
rest of them as systematically as his batteries, 
his ammunition "dumps," and his reserves. 

First in the order of danger is the Regimental 
Aid Post, where the regimental doctor, with his 
stretcher-bearers, awaits, alongside the men who 
are to clamber "over the top," the bloody fruits 
of battle. In the early days of the war, before 
we had discovered the secret, or had the means, 
to blast our road into Germany by ceaseless 
shells, the Regimental Aid Post was, as a rule, in 
some deserted farmhouse as near to the front 
trench as possible. To-day, as we advance, our 
guns leave nothing standing, so that what was 
once perhaps a chateau is now only a stretch of 
rubble. There is therefore but little available 
cover for the doctors or the others before "con- 
solidation." 

The intensity of the French and German artil- 
lery at Verdun in March seemed to me then the 



110 AT THE WAR 

limit of human capacity to produce noise and de- 
struction. But the Somme bombardment actu- 
ally furrows or flattens all before it. Verdun 
itself could not exist a week if exposed to the 
present French and British cannonade. Its vol- 
ume of sound is so great that at times the very 
earth shakes beneath one's feet. 

The doctor has to-day probably only the shel- 
ter of one of our own trenches or any little part 
that may remain of a captured German trench. 
There is no other covering for him and his brave 
stretcher-bearers, who are at once his nurses and 
his orderlies. Happily not so many of these are 
fired upon by the enemy as heretofore; for, as the 
Prussians have realised that our artillery is the 
most deadly thing in the history of war, they 
have become a good deal more reasonable and 
human. Now that their own wounded greatly 
outnumber ours on almost every occasion, their 
doctors and stretcher-bearers often advance with 
a sheet or towel held high on a rifle as a flag of 
truce in order that they may collect their wounded 
and we ours. In the early days of the war sim- 
ilar suggestions on our part were haughtily and 
contemptuously refused. And so the advanced 
medical forces on both sides are at last sparing 
the wounded a good deal of the drawn-out hor- 
rors of "No Man's Land." 

The fine young men with the English, Scotch, 
Irish, Canadian, and Australian accents who 



THE WAR DOCTORS 111 

stand unarmed in these Regimental Aid Posts 
work with an intensity and celerity which eclipse 
even that of the surgeons in London's operating 
theatres. 

The stretcher-bearers stagger in with their 
load. There is a lightning diagnosis, an antisep- 
tic application, bandaging, a hastily-written label 
tied to the man's breast, and the wounded one 
is borne off and away in the open to the next 
stage, the Advanced Dressing Station, which is 
as often as not also pushed right up into the fire 
zone. The regimental stretcher-bearers there- 
fore begin again another dangerous pilgrimage 
rearwards. 

As there is much ignorance in the public mind 
on the subject of casualties, it should be well 
realised that by far the greater proportion of our 
wounded are slightly hit, and are "walking 
cases," so little hurt that in innumerable instances 
where the stretcher-bearers themselves have 
fallen they have been carried by the slightly 
wounded soldiers. 

I know no more moving experience than an 
afternoon in an advanced dressing station. Let 
me describe that of West Peronne. Its location 
is changed now, so I am giving the enemy no in- 
formation. We reached it on a heavy and sultry 
Sunday afternoon by hiding ourselves behind 
anything possible. Dust and smoke gave the at- 
mosphere of a coming thunder-storm, the thud- 



112 AT THE WAR 

ding of the guns on both sides was incessant. 
Now and then was heard the brisk note of a ma- 
chine-gun, which sounds for all the world like a 
boy rasping a stick along palings or the rattle 
which policemen carried in Mid- Victorian days. 

There was no sign of anything in the nature of 
a hospital, a tent, or of anything above ground. I 
was getting somewhat weary of being told to lie 
down flat every few seconds to avoid bursting 
shells, when I saw a couple of stretcher-bearers 
coming through the haze as from nowhere and 
then disappear underground. ''It is underneath 
there," I was told by my guide, whose daily duty 
it was to inspect these medical outposts. 

As quickly as possible we got down into a 
trench and followed the stretcher-bearers. 
There, in darkness lit by a few candles, we grad- 
ually made out a very grim scene. Talking was 
difficult, for one of our batteries had just come 
into action a few yards away. 

Owing to the heavy enemy shell fire, what I 
soon found to be an underground maze — a plan 
of which appears on page 114 — had become com- 
pletely blocked with wounded men lying in the 
dark on their stretchers, the passage ways dug 
out of the clayish earth being just the width of 
a stretcher handle and no more. We trod gently 
from stretcher handle to stretcher handle over the 
silent men, some of them asleep with the blessed 
morphia in their brains, others cheerily smiling, 



THE WAR DOCTORS 113 

others staring as wounded men do. All who 
could move a hand had a cigarette — now admit- 
ted to be the first need of all but the very dan- 
gerously wounded. 

Passing on, and using our electric torch as little 
as possible, so as not to disturb the sleepers, we 
came to the main dressing room. Remember it 
was all underground, all dark, and that the on- 
coming wail of approaching shells, with immedi- 
ate subsequent explosions, was continuous. 

In this main dressing room the doctors, all 
young men, some of them subalterns of the 
R.A.M.C., were washing and bandaging with 
the care and speed that can be seen in the Somme 
film. I counted twenty-four patients in that small 
chamber. We crept onward and came to another 
room where there were nine cases, and again to a 
smaller one where lay the more dangerously 
wounded. 

These dressing rooms were protected by some 
four or five feet of earth above them. There was 
a small officers' mess and a medical storeroom, 
which were merely shielded by corrugated iron 
from shrapnel splinters, a kitchen, an office, and 
that was about all. An operation for tracheot- 
omy was taking place in one of the dressing- 
rooms. 

In all my many experiences abroad I have never 
seen a more touching sight than this little un- 
derground gathering of some seventy men, de- 



114 



AT THE WAR 



voted doctors and assistants, waiting' amidst the 
incessant shelling until the overcrowded maze 




could be evacuated. Let those who take their 
ease on a Sunday afternoon, or any other after- 
noon, realise that this same scene never ceases. 



THE WAR DOCTORS 115 

Let those who consider that they are amply doing 
their "bit" by keeping things going at home be 
grateful that their "bit" is not as that of these 
young men. We cannot all of us share the dan- 
ger, but we can every one of us admit the harsh 
inequalities of our respective war work. 

One or two of the patients were shell-shock 
victims, and it was piteous to note their tremor at 
the approaching shell wails and subsequent thuds 
just outside our little catacomb. 

The plan on the opposite page gives a sugges- 
tion of the ingenuity with which the R.A.M.C. 
officers have converted a bit of an old German 
trench-work to the purposes of an underground 
hospital and home for the doctors and their as- 
sistants. 

The shelling increased in intensity. It became 
obvious that we had to remain concealed till the 
storm had ceased. In the interval we discussed 
things about wounded men. We learned that 
qiiite a considerable proportion of them had 
dressed their own wounds with the little first field 
dressing that is sewn into the tunic of every sol- 
dier. Others had got along well enough with the 
medical help of regimental stretcher-bearers. 
The rest had been tended at the Regimental Aid 
Posts to which I have referred. 

Presently the Germans diverted the attention 
of their gunners to another point of the line, 



116 AT THE WAR 

and we were able to emerge into daylight once 
more and join a small company of lightly wound- 
ed and stretcher-bearers on their way to a Walk- 
ing Wounded Collecting Station. I name all these 
distinct stages in the progress of the wounded 
man in order to show how carefully the system 
has been thought out and organised. It is a 
tribute to the foresight of our medical authori- 
ties that all this vast scheme had been arranged 
before the war. 

On our way rearwards to the Walking Wound- 
ed Collecting Station we were passed by some 
horse-ambulances which, summoned by telephone, 
were proceeding to the underground hospital we 
had just left. On our way we escaped the only 
enemy aeroplane attack that came to my notice 
during this visit to the front. An officer and a 
few men were wounded. It speaks eloquently for 
the celerity with which our casualties are cleared 
when I tell you that on that same evening, many 
miles away in the rear, I saw this particular 
wounded officer sitting in bed nonchalantly en- 
joying his dinner. By the next day, I was told, 
he would probably be in England. 

The Walking Wounded Collecting Station 
consisted of marquees in which a considerable 
number of Tommies of all dialects were partak- 
ing of a hearty meal. As each arrived his name 
and regimental number were entered, with par- 
ticulars of his case. Where necessary his dress- 



THE WAR DOCTORS 117 

ings were re-arranged, and in every case a cig- 
arette was offered. Prodigious quantities of tea, 
cocoa, soup, bread, butter and jam were disap- 
pearing. Despite the bandaged heads and arms 
of some and the Hmping of others, they were a 
merry, if tired, party. Eagerly and in vigorous 
and unprintable Anglo-Saxon one of them said: 

"I want to have another smack at the 

Allemans." In a tent was a wounded officer, fa- 
mous in the world of big game (scarred as the 
result of a miraculous escape from an African 
elephant), who, though covered with blood, had 
only one anxiety, and that was to have his wound 
dressed, get a bath, and return to his men in time 
for the next ''stunt" — to use an abominable 
Americanism which has grown weed-like into 
our war language. Two days before, this Walk- 
ing Wounded Collecting Station had been shelled 
by the enemy. By a strange stroke of fortune 
the only victims were a large number of German 
prisoners. 

Life is held gaily and cheaply in these advanced 
hospitals. There was a small underground cham- 
ber here fitted with bunks as on shipboard, in 
which the officers could sleep if they chose, but 
they did not seem to be particular whether they 
used it or not. 

^» ^C 3jJ ^? ^ 

We shared the soldiers' meals, listened to their 
stories— each one of them a full adventure, in 



118 AT THE WAR 

peace time — and continued basewards, accompa- 
nied by motor ambulances in which sitting cases 
were carried, to a great Corps Collecting Station, 
a veritable Clapham Junction of the evacuating 
system. 

To prevent mistakes, each man's label is 
checked at every point he arrives at with as much 
care as a registered letter on its way through the 
post. There is no Red Tape, and nothing is left 
to chance. There is no lost time. It is never 
forgotten that pain is ever present and that sav- 
ing time may mean saving life. But even though 
we have not yet come to that link in the chain — 
the hospital which is kept neat and burnished by 
the hand of woman — all is well arranged and 
spotlessly clean. Many dressings were being re- 
examined and many wounds again attended to. 

Here I saw the field operating theatre nearest 
to the battle. It was in a spotless tent with a 
table, a powerful acetylene lamp, chloroform, 
and instruments — all ready. Operations in the 
field are a rare exception in the British Army. 
The matter of their necessity has been discussed 
and re-discussed. There are arguments for and 
against. But Sir Arthur Sloggett, General Mac- 
pherson, and the famous surgeons we have at the 
front, with Sir Alfred Keogh at home, may be 
relied upon to know their business to the tips of 
their fingers. In other armies, notably the Ital- 
ian, urgent operations take place in what an- 



THE WAR DOCTORS 119 

swer to our Advanced Dressing Stations. An 
Italian officer said to me : "We should not do it 
unless we had to. Many of our cases would not 
stand transport from our Alpine heights." 

H< H? >t: 5|: * 

Resuming our journey with the ambulances, 
we came, after an hour's halting journey through 
the dust and the A.S.C convoys to a Casualty 
Clearing Station — the first hospital of a kind vis- 
ualised by the general public. 

I have discovered from their conversation that 
very few people realise the intricate nature of 
the net spread by the R.A.M.C. over the field of 
war. The meshes are many — but not too many. 
An important part of the net are these very per- 
fect clearing establishments. The description of 
two will be sufficient. 

One of these Clearing Stations was a large old 
water-mill which had been transformed into a 
most beautiful hospital. I reached it in time to 
witness the arrival of the ambulances. Out of 
them came all manner of wounded, British and 
German. Friend and foe were treated alike. 
They were just wounded men — that was all. 
Such as could walk by themselves or with the 
help of orderlies, came out dazed into the sun- 
light from the ambulances. The Germans, who 
had for days been trench-bound by our barrage, 
were, as a rule, horribly dirty and impossible 
to approach for physical reasons. Later, at an- 



120 AT THE WAR 

other hospital I saw gently-born V.A.D. nurses 
washing great unbathed wounded Prussians and 
Bavarians. I felt positively guilty when I 
thought of the chaff with which the V.A.D. move- 
ment, its uniforms and salutings, was received 
ten years ago in the bad old days when we ought 
to have been preparing for war. 

Here, in this mill Casualty Clearing Station, 
the broken soldiers came for the first time under 
the influence and gentle touch and consoling smile 
of women nurses. Many of the men had been in 
and about the firing line for weeks, several of the 
Germans for longer than that. I talked with 
some of the enemy who had arrived a day or two 
before in what must have seemed a fairy palace. 
Some spoke of the care, kindness, good food, 
flowers, and music (the gramophone never stops) 
which were provided. As a rule they are grate- 
ful — at any rate at first. Some are very grateful. 
One officer used the word "lovingly" (liebvoll), 
and "lovingly" it must seem, for nothing is more 
marked in inspecting German hospitals, even 
such an establishment as the Rudolf Virchow 
Hospital in Berlin, than to notice the roughness 
of the surgery, the callousness shown in making 
remarks before patients, and the inferiority of 
the under-trained nurses. 

Some are not grateful and, like the pampered 
civilians at the Alexandra Palace, think it neces- 



THE WAR DOCTORS 121 

sary to place on record complaints based on mere 
hostility. 

This Casualty Clearing Station, placid with its 
river, with its sunny gardens — into which many 
beds had been carried so that the wounded might 
enjoy the birds, the flowers, and trees — seems like 
an oasis after the grim desolation of the wilder- 
ness of the Somme heights. 

It is impossible to convey in words the amazing 
tireless activity of the nurses and doctors. I 
did not know that human beings could work so 
many hours without sleep at the most anxious 
kind of work the world provides. No wonder 
that the women sometimes break down and re- 
quire hostels and rest homes. Yet during a num- 
ber of war visits I have not met with one com- 
plaint from any member of any medical staff in 
the field or elsewhere. There is, on the other 
hand, the same continuous enthusiasm through- 
out the medical service as one sees in the great 
boot factory at Calais, in the vast motor repair 
shop in Paris, or our transport from Havre to 
the Front. The stimulus of war seems to double 
the energy of every human being as soon as he 
lands in France. 

At this great Casualty Clearing Station by the 
railway the hospital trains were collecting. 
When we had been shown through the cool tents 
and had talked with men we happened to know, 
we went on to the newly made railway platform 



122 AT THE WAR 

where the stretchers were being assembled. It 
was a scene almost of gaiety. The gramophone 
was playing the inevitable "If You Were the 
Only Girl in the World." Jokes, cigarettes, and 
newspapers were passed about. The men looked 
the acme of content in their beautiful white train. 
They were willing and anxious to chat. They 
were interested in all that was going on, and 
grateful. Many might be going to "Blighty" 
(Britain), the paradise of the wounded man's im- 
agination. 

I do not know whether any one has written an 
account of these trains, the doctors and nurses 
who live in them year in and year out, travelling 
thousands of miles in the course of a twelve- 
month, but some one should do so. My own in- 
formation is as yet so scanty as to be little worth 
reading.^ Of the wonderful hospital barges, too, 
which, whenever possible, are used on the wide 
French rivers and canals to carry cases that can- 
not stand any shaking, not enough has been said. 

It was interesting at the Clearing Station to 
see evidence of the Red Cross Society in the ex- 
istence of the comfortable English beds of many 
of the sufferers. In the world of wounded all 
sorts of little things have an importance not un- 
derstood by the generality of us. A man likes 

^ I have since read with interest a remarkable record, 
The Diary of a Nursing Sister (William Blackwood and 
Sons). 



THE WAR DOCTORS 123 

to lie in bed rather than on a stretcher not merely 
for the sake of custom and comfort. Such is hu- 
man nature that one man feels proud of having 
a bed when another man has not. 

The train took away all in a fit condition for 
travel, leaving behind such cases as those of seri- 
ous chest, abdominal, and head wounds in the 
care of surgeons. 

On a later day I saw the arrival of one such 
train at one of those hospitals which look out on 
the sea and are situated on the Northern French 
coast, which long before the war was recognised 
as a great healing place. The medical journals 
tell their readers in their own language of these 
wonderful hospitals — converted casinos and ho- 
tels and miles of perfectly-equipped huts. Our 
hospitals in France are a world of their own. I 
do not know how many women and men they 
employ, but I should say more than one hundred 
thousand. In the Etaples district alone there 
are 35,000 beds. Canada, Australia, New Zea- 
land, Newfoundland, India, and the whole of the 
Empire have given with both hands. 

Those of the wounded who can be made well 
quickly enough — and they are, of course, the im- 
mense majority — go back to their war duties at 
the front, some eagerly, all without murmuring. 
As they lie there in these wonderful huts, in 
which every provision for speedy convalescence. 



IM AT THE WAR 

for happiness, and reasonable amusement are af- 
forded, tended as they are by the best surgeons 
and physicians of the EngHsh-speaking world, 
and by ladies simply and gently born, they all 
tell you the same story — they would like to get a 
glimpse of ''Blighty" before going back again to 
fight. 

I went on board one of the white hospital 
ships, marked against submarines on each side 
with a huge red cross, to see them going home. 
Arriving on the quay in the British Red Cross 
and St. John ambulances, and gently carried, with 
the peculiar, slightly swaying walk of the trained 
stretcher-bearer, they pass on to the ship and de- 
scend in lifts to the particular deck on which is 
their cot or bed. There can be nothing of the 
kind in the world better than these speedy, per- 
fectly lit and ventilated vessels. 

Once on board, and yet another stage nearer 
"Blighty" and the beloved ones, all are content- 
ment itself. Some of the less injured men were 
on deck singing merrily. Others of the wounded 
were discussing a newspaper article outlining a 
project for the settling of soldiers on land in the 
Dominions after the war. "Many will go to Can- 
ada; some to Australia, I dare say," said one 
man; "but I am one of those who mean to have 
a little bit of 'Blighty' for myself. We see enough 
in France to know that a man and his family can 



THE WAR DOCTORS 125 

manage a bit of land for themselves and live well 
on it." I remember a similar conversation a year 
ago close to Ypres, when a young sergeant, who 
had been a gamekeeper at home and a working 
man Conservative, observed, "The men in the 
dug-outs talk of a good many subjects, but there 
is one on which they are all agreed. That is the 
land question. They are not going back as la- 
bourers, or as tenants, but as owners. Lots of 
them have used their eyes and learned much about 
small farming here." 

As I watched the swift ship and saw her speed- 
ing away to England at well over twenty knots, I 
wondered if people and politicians at home are 
beginning to understand that the bravery and 
camaraderie of the officers and men in the field 
have broken down all class feeling; and that our 
millions of men abroad are changed communities 
of whose thoughts and aims we know but little. 

Just as Grant's soldiers, the Grand Army of 
the Republic, dominated the elections in the 
United States for a quarter of a century, so will 
the men I have seen in the trenches and the am- 
bulances come home and demand by their votes 
the reward of a very changed England — an Eng- 
land they will fashion and share; an England 
that is likely to be as much a surprise to the pres- 
ent owners of Capital and leaders of Labour as 
it may be to the owners of the land. 



RED CROSS VISITS 



THE PEOPI.E AT 83 PALL MALL AND 
ELSEWHERE 

The: world-wide war work of the British Red 
Cross Society and Order of St. John of Jerusa- 
lem, to which I shall refer, in future, by the ge- 
neric title of the British Red Cross, ranks among 
the chief of the achievements of proved British 
organising capacity. 

Such a far-flung and minutely complicated ma- 
chine did not spring like Minerva from the head 
of Jove. It was born amidst the toil and trouble, 
rush and mismanagement to be expected by a na- 
tion caught unprepared. The sudden demands 
for help from the Red Cross that followed the 
retreat from Mons were met, expensively perhaps, 
but they were met. And after all, when the man- 
sion is burning it is no time to haggle about the 
cost of the fire engine. 

My personal connexion with and subsequent 
intimate knowledge of the British Red Cross fol- 
lowed an appeal for funds issued in The Times 
newspaper, generously and continuously sup- 

129 



130 AT THE WAR 

ported by practically every leading journal at 
home and overseas. I soon found that I was to 
be held responsible by numbers of donors of sums, 
great and small, for what they consider to be mis- 
management on the Continent. I quickly discov- 
ered that givers need and deserve information as 
to the handling of their moneys. I went abroad 
to investigate, and made my first acquaintance 
with the edge of the beginning of the Great 
Crusade at the time of the Battle of the 
Marne. 

When the complaints were analysed, it was 
easy to see that the evil growths were just the 
ordinary weeds that spring up in soil long un- 
tilled. Most of them were mistakes of the heart 
and not of the head, and none of the mistakes 
were very serious. In the first few weeks of the 
war every individual nerve in the Empire tingled 
to be doing something. People rushed hither and 
thither formulating all sorts of schemes, starting 
all manner of committees ; many dashed across to 
France and even farther afield in the burning de- 
sire to do something. 

The British Red Cross promptly took its mis- 
takes in hand, and owing to the indefatigable la- 
bours of what became the Joint Committee and 
its assistants, the present smooth-working, 
thrifty, responsive and ever-growing organisa- 
tion was soon in being. 

Primarily, I take it that the office of the Red 



RED CROSS VISITS 131 

Cross is to add just those additions to the medical 
and relief organisations provided by Government 
which it is difficult for Government departments 
to provide quickly. It is the speed with which the 
Red Cross does things that makes it so valuable 
an adjunct to the Royal Army Medical Corps and 
a score of other official organisations. 

While every penny is held to strict account, 
money has been forthcoming on many occasions 
to the extent of thousands of pounds at the receipt 
of some vital telegraphic despatch from one or 
other of the many theatres of war. I shall en- 
deavour to catalogue some of the things the Red 
Cross does, some of the goods supplied. A verita- 
ble army, employing directly and indirectly at 
least fifty thousand women and men, voluntary 
and paid, has its well-known headquarters at 83, 
Pall Mall, where work is carried on by day and 
by night three hundred and sixty-five days in the 
year. 

The British Red Cross and Order of St. John 
had the excellent fortune to be assisted from the 
outset by some of the best organisers in the Em- 
pire, as I shall show. When the late Lord Roths- 
child gave me the opportunity of assisting, he had 
already around him capable men. The great 
struggle in France grew, and to these helpers 
were added the voluntary services of other lead- 
ing men of affairs, men whose careers at home 



132 AT THE WAR 

and overseas were indicative of high administra- 
tive capacity. 

I have often, of malice prepense, suggested to 
some of my political acquaintances involved in the 
shortcomings, muddles, miscalculations and un- 
der-estimations of the first two years of the war, 
that, had the management been left to 83, Pall 
Mall and the soldiers and sailors, a good many 
of the black pages that will stand out in history, 
and increasingly so as the war is seen in its proper 
perspective, would not have been written. 

I am furthermore of opinion that the addition 
of feminine insight to the councils of the Red 
Cross G.H.Q. has had a great deal to do with the 
absence of that foolish optimism which would 
have prevented the Red Cross operations being 
conducted as they are — not for this year or for 
next year — not for 19 16 and for 19 17, but, if 
needs be, for 191 8, 1919: yes, and even for 1920, 
too. 

With the union (for which The Times can 
claim some credit) of the British Red Cross So- 
ciety and the Order of St. John for the period of 
the war at least (and as some of us hope 
for all time) a Joint Committee of the two or- 
ganisations became a prime necessity. 

This Committee was formed and commenced 
its operations on October 20th, 1914, by which 
time it had made 83, Pall Mall its G.H.Q. The 
Chairman of the Joint Committee was, and is, the 



RED CROSS VISITS 133 

Hon. Arthur Stanley, C.B., M.V.O., M.P. Mr. 
Stanley's eldest brother, Lord Derby, has done 
yeoman service in other fields since the outbreak 
of war, while all his other brothers are serving 
either with the Army or Navy with distinction to 
themselves and benefit to their country. 

Mr. Arthur Stanley sits in his office on the third 
floor of the building in Pall Mall for long hours 
on every day of the week, and from his office 
radiate the directions which, as Chairman of the 
Joint Committee, he issues to every department 
of the organisation. He is the mouthpiece of the 
Joint Committee, its medium of communication 
with the Military Authorities, and the mainspring 
of its inspiration. How much the work of the 
Red Cross owes to its Chairman will probably 
never be known, and Mr. Stanley would be the 
last to wish me to assess it. His sweetness of dis- 
position and firmness of purpose make him facile 
prince ps in the art of smoothing ruffled suscepti- 
bilities, masculine and even feminine, of individ- 
uals and even of whole Committees. It only re- 
mains to be said that, like all his family, Mr. 
Stanley is a sound and unquestioned Conserva- 
tive, so far as these party labels have any mean- 
ing nowadays. 

At the right hand of Mr. Stanley is Sir Rob- 
ert Hudson. At the outbreak of the war Sir 
Robert was the Chief Agent of the Liberal Party. 
When war swept over the world he was permitted 



134 AT THE WAR 

by the chieftains of his party to throw up his 
work, and, for the period of the war, to hang up 
his hat at the headquarters of the Red Cross, and 
there he has been practically ever since for ten 
hours a day and longer. 

Sir Robert's nominal title in Pall Mall is Chair- 
man of the Joint Finance Committee. His real 
vocation is Financial Manager of the Red Cross 
G.H.Q. A man with five million or more pounds 
in his keeping needs a strong control of his gen- 
erous impulses, and Sir Robert possesses it. He 
has the faculty of saying "No" more agreeably 
than any friend of mine except Mr. Arthur Stan- 
ley. He is fully responsible for success or failure. 
If anything goes wrong with Red Cross finance, 
it is he who would be suspended from a lamp- 
post conveniently situated outside his office in 
Pall Mall, to which fact his attention is constantly 
called. 

Association with Sir Robert Hudson has taught 
me a great deal. For a number of years, in com- 
mon with others of sound political views, I have 
been engaged in fighting the wicked machinations 
of the Radical Party in England. I surmise now 
that the reason of many of our failures was the 
presence of Sir Robert at the Liberal headquar- 
ters. It is reassuring to know that he is a force 
with whom we shall not have to contend in the 
immediate future, for his services have been lent 
to the Red Cross for the period of the war. Cer- 



RED CROSS VISITS 135 

tain optimists concerned in our work are flatter- 
ing themselves that by a process of peaceful per- 
suasion we shall win Sir Robert from his evil 
political ways. Whether there is foundation for 
this hope, remains to be seen. He may have a 
political conscience. But, even if he has, it is 
permissible to hope that, some day, he may find 
salvation. 

Sir Robert Hudson, who might probably, had 
he wished it, have been an influence in one of the 
great departments of State, links up and controls 
the infinitely complex organisation of the Red 
Cross with a well-concealed hand of iron. I say 
unhesitatingly that I hope he and Mr. Arthur 
Stanley and Sir William Garstin (to name only 
three of them) will remain where they are until 
war is a thing of the past. 

Accustomed myself to a wearisome round of 
organisation, and believing that I understand 
something of the direction of staffs, I never visit 
the Red Cross G.H.Q. and its numerous and va- 
ried offshoots abroad without feeling that any 
change in the administration at 83, Pall Mall 
would be a serious blow to a wonderful achieve- 
ment in efficiency. 

The Red Cross has no direct connexion with 
Government. There are no jobs to be found for 
office seekers, no rewards are expected or given 
to the workers. Honour' lists pass by unrcc^d in 
the stress of work. Political, social and pecuniary 



136 AT THE WAR -i, 

pressure are unknown, though perhaps a little was 
ineffectually attempted in the early days, before 
the Stanley-Hudson combination had manifested 
itself. The true distinction of Red Cross service 
is that it should pass without "recognition." Even 
my comments here will, I daresay, be resented by 
those whom I venture thus to mention. 

Sub-Committees of the Joint War Committee 
have been set up for all the principal branches of 
the work. The chief of these departments are: — 

The Finance Department (which directly 
affects, and so far as money is con- 
cerned, controls every branch of the 
work). 

The Stores and Transport Department, 

The Collections Department, 

The Motor Ambulance Department, 

The Motor Launch and Hospital-Ship De- 
partment, 

The General Personnel Department, 

The Medical and Surgical Personnel Depart- 
ment, 

The Trained Nurses Department, 

The V.A.D. Department, 

The Auxiliary Home Hospitals Depart- 
ment, 

The Convalescent Homes for Officers De- 
partment, 



RED CROSS VISITS 137 

The Missing and Wounded Inquiry Depart- 
ment, 
The Prisoners of War Department, 
The Travelling and Passport Department, 
The Hospital Trains Department, 
The Anglo-French Hospitals Department, 

and there are in addition offices which deal with : 

General Enquiries, 

Accountancy, 

Pay of Personnel, 

Contracts for Personnel^ 

King George Hospital, 

The ''Star and Garter" Home, 

Convalescent Camps, 

Church Collections, 

Issue and Receipt of Collecting Boxes, 

Printing and Stationery. 

There is a room in which a doctor attends to 
medically examine and inoculate the staff proceed- 
ing abroad. There are a telephone exchange, a 
tea room for the female staff, typists' and clerks' 
rooms, a printing and duplicating room, and 
scores of other offices where idleness is unknown. 
Finally there is a large chamber which is used for 
meetings of the important Committees and Sub- 
Committees, where alone it is hinted, by those 
who do not sit on the Committees, that time is 
occasionally wasted. 



138 AT THE WAR 

Apart from the central stores in Pall Mall 
there are a variety of other stores in various con- 
venient parts of London. The Medical and Sur- 
gical Stores occupies a building in Store Street, 
Tottenham Court Road. The greater part of 
Devonshire House, lent by the Duke and Duchess 
of Devonshire, is devoted to the work of the 
V.A.D., whether of the British Red Cross Society 
or of the Order of St. John. i8, Carlton House 
Terrace, lent by Lord Astor, is given over to the 
work of the Missing and Wounded Department. 

Very extensive premises have just been ac- 
quired in Thurloe Place, opposite Brompton Ora- 
tory, as the headquarters of the Prisoners of War 
Committee, which will be charged with a regular 
despatch of parcels to all British prisoners of 
war. Surrey Hotise, Marble Arch, lent by Lady 
Battersea, houses the War Library, which des- 
patches books, magazines and papers for the sick 
and wounded, both at home and abroad. The 
Central Workrooms carries on its immense work 
in the Royal Academy, thanks to the generosity 
of Sir Edward Poynter and the Council. 

These are the chief departments which fall 
under the immediate control and supervision of 
G.H.Q. Farther afield are, of course, the head- 
quarters and branches of the Joint Committee's 
activities in France and Flanders, in Italy, Egypt, 
Malta, Salonica, Mesopotamia and India, and 
British East Africa. Each of these areas has a 



RED CROSS VISITS 139 

Chief Commissioner and staff of doctors, nurses, 
accountants, store-keepers, mechanics, ambulance 
drivers, orderlies, and clerks. The Joint Com- 
mittee has assisted in setting up hospitals and 
providing ambulances in Russia and Roumania. 
In the Mediterranean and in Eastern waters it 
has a fleet of motor boats for the conveyance both 
of the wounded and of Red Cross stores and com- 
forts. Its fleet of ambulances, lorries, repair 
cars, soup kitchens, numbers over 2,100. Its ve- 
hicular machinery comprises X-ray cars, dentists' 
cars, cycles, wagons, post offices. 

Its personnel in every branch of its work from 
doctors to ambulance drivers is very largely vol- 
untary and unpaid. The head of every depart- 
ment in England, and the commissioners and chief 
officials in all the theatres of war, are all serving 
without pay, and even where pay is drawn there 
must be innumerable cases where it represents 
only a fraction of the income which the official 
could have commanded if he had remained in his 
ordinary sphere of life. 

I could illustrate this by the case of doctors 
who at the outbreak of war gave up lucrative 
practices bringing them in many thousands a 
year and "signed on" with the Red Cross for 
service abroad at the flat rate of £1 per day. The 
pay which they receive would in many cases be 
insufficient to meet the rent of their rooms in 
Harley Street. It may fairly be said that every 



140 AT THE WAR 

worker under the Red Cross, paid or unpaid, has 
made some sacrifice and has made it eagerly and 
gladly. 

It may be thought that these numberless de- 
partments (most of them with a committee of 
experts to guide them) with the need of holding 
numerous meetings of the committee must in- 
evitably produce delay, but that is not the case. 
The committees deal with matters of principle, 
and the ordinary control of the daily work is left 
to the head of the department and his staff. If 
the Joint War Committee considers that £50,000 
worth of stores should be despatched to Mesopo- 
tamia, or that a hospital ship, costing £20,000, 
should be built for the Tigris, and if the Finance 
Committee approve the expenditure, a notification 
is made to Sir William Garstin. Sir William, an 
administrator whose work is known throughout 
the Empire, was a very fortunate catch for the 
Red Cross. It is he who presides over the Stores 
Department. Should the urgent matters concern 
boat-transport, Mr. George Warre, who has 
charge of the Motor Launch and Hospital Ship 
Department, is naturally consulted. 

Emergency meetings of many of the Commit- 
tees are called at a few hours' notice. Most of the 
members are to be found for ten hours a day at 
83, Pall Mall, and not merely a quorum but a full 
attendance can be ensured at the shortest notice. 
It is recognised that all the work of the Joint So- 



RED CROSS VISITS 141 

cieties is urgent and that none of it will brook de- 
lay. Everything can be found in the Pall Mall 
building, with the single exception of Red Tape. 

It is impossible to exaggerate the debt which 
the Joint Societies owe to the heads of their vari- 
ous departments. The Stores and Transport De- 
partment is, as we have already mentioned, con- 
trolled by a great Empire-builder, Sir William 
Garstin; the Medical and Surgical personnel is 
inspected and chosen by Sir Frederick Treves; 
the Collections Committee is served by Sir Charles 
Russell; the Motor Ambulance Department is 
directed by a man of the great business capacity 
of Mr. E. M. Clarke; the Auxiliary Home Hos- 
pitals Department is under the charge of Dr. Rob- 
ert Fox-Symons; Sir John Furley (who did Red 
Cross work in the Franco-German War of 1870) 
controls the Hospital Trains Department; the 
Hon. Reginald Coventry devotes himself to the 
Travelling and Passport Office ; Surgeon-General 
Sir Benjamin Franklin controls the personnel 
Contract Department; Sir Starr Jameson directs 
the despatch of parcels to the Prisoners of War. 
These men are incalculable assets to the organisa- 
tion. 

That alert and hustling monarch. King Manoel 
of Portugal, a young man with a future, I am 
very sure, is a tireless Red Cross worker. 

I have already hinted that the Red Cross owes 
much to the women who serve it. Mrs. Charles 



143 AT THE WAR 

Furse, the widow of the distinguished painter, is 
in command of the V.A.D.'s; Miss Swift is Chief 
Matron of the Trained Nurses' Department; 
Georgina Lady Dudley manages the Department 
for Convalescent Officers ; Lady Gosford is at the 
Central Workrooms. These are only a few of 
those whose names deserve to be remembered in 
the years to come. 

But apart from these heads of departments a 
tribute must be paid to every worker, paid or un- 
paid, male or female, of the great army at home 
and abroad which devotes itself so ungrudgingly 
to the work of organisation. The spirit of sacri- 
fice animates every one from the highest to the 
lowest. It is noteworthy that the Boy Scouts of 
the Red Cross run more quickly on their errands 
than others do. 

The immense daily correspondence at G.H.Q. 
is opened and dealt with on a most careful sys- 
tem, made necessary by the fact that a large pro- 
portion of the letters are either of extreme urg- 
ency or contain remittances which require careful 
accountancy and safe banking and acknowledg- 
ment. 

When the letters have been opened and dock- 
eted, they are circulated to the departments to 
which they relate, after being recorded in a regis- 
ter and marked so that the actual opener of the 
letter can always be identified. With remittances 
running into hundreds of thousands and aggre- 



RED CROSS VISITS 143 

gating nearly £5,000,000, it is a fine testimonial 
that there is hardly a case of a missing contribu- 
tion, and in the few cases which have arisen it is 
almost certain that the loss has been in transmis- 
sion in the post or has happened, alas ! from time 
to time, by the destruction of a ship carrying 
mails from abroad. 

By close accountancy, a careful watching of the 
balances at the bank, and a speedy investment in 
short term Treasury Bills of all available bal- 
ances, a sum has been earned in interest which in 
itself will probably turn out to be sufficiently 
large to defray the administrative expenses of the 
Joint Committee in Pall Mall. This is largely the 
work of Sir Robert Hudson, and is evidence that 
the Liberal War Chest, so disturbing to humble 
Tory workers like myself, is carefully financed. 

The Red Cross revenue has been drawn from 
every part of the King's Dominions, and indeed 
from sympathisers in many neutral countries, 
who, if they do not take sides in the world con- 
flict, at least feel for others who are broken in the 
fight. 

It has been the privilege of The Times (and 
its weekly edition) not merely to make the appeal 
known to the English-speaking world, but also to 
acknowledge in its columns day by day since Au- 
gust, 1914, the moneys which have been sent in 
response to the appeal. In the history of charita- 
ble appeals there has never been any such re- 



144 AT THE WAR 

sponse as that received to the cry of the British 
Red Cross. Six thousand pounds a day has been 
asked for, and for a period of 26 months this 
average has been steadily maintained and indeed 
slightly exceeded. 

When the first year's accounts of the Joint 
Committee were published, they were reviewed in 
the columns of The Times by the acknowledged 
head of the accountants' world. Sir William 
Plender. Sir William stated after his examina- 
tion of the accounts "that (excluding hospitals) 
the total home administration and management 
expenses, including the unpacking, sorting, and 
repacking of gifts in kind only amount to £41,070, 
equal to 2^ per cent, of the total income, or ap- 
proximately 5^d. in the pound. . . . Few ad- 
ministrative bodies are required to meet such un- 
expected demands upon their resources, or are 
called upon to cope with so many emergencies as 
are those controlling Red Cross work. 

"The wise and economical administration of 
public funds calls at all times for the exercise of 
unusual qualities ; but the difficulties and responsi- 
bilities are vastly increased where a great or- 
ganisation has to be built up in a short time dur- 
ing a period of unprecedented commercial and 
financial disturbance, and to meet demands the 
nature and extent of which cannot be foreseen. 

"That further appeals will be made to the gen- 
erosity of the public and still heavier calls made 



RED CROSS VISITS 145 

on the activities of the Joint Committee cannot be 
doubted, but if the experience of the past be any 
guide to the future, no apprehension need be felt 
on either ground. It must be no Httle satisfaction 
to the many thousands of contributors at home 
and overseas to reahse that the work of the Joint 
Committee — who are trustees for the public — 
has been worthy of the great task committed to 
their keeping." 

In connexion with the financial side of the 
work, it is right that recognition should be paid 
to the debt which the Joint Committee owes to 
Messrs. Chatteris, Nichols & Co., who act as hon. 
auditors, and whose staff are always at work, 
either in England or on the Continent, without 
receiving any remuneration for the work; to 
Messrs. Kemp, Sons, Sendell & Co., who are in 
charge of the Accountancy Department at Pall 
Mall; and to Mr. Basil Mayhew, of Messrs. Bar- 
ton, Mayhew & Co., chartered accountants, who 
from the inception of the Joint Finance Commit- 
tee has acted as its Secretary, and whose services 
to the Joint Societies are beyond computation. 

It is impossible, in such a review as this, to 
give any idea of the varied activities and energies 
which a visit to 83, Pall Mall would disclose. The 
London public are already familiar with the spec- 
tacle of a large part of Pall Mall being perma- 
nently occupied by the great motor lorries and 
delivery vans of the Stores Department. The 



146 AT THE WAR 

Joint Committee were well advised when they 
pitched their tent in a thoroughfare like Pall Mall, 
where the passer-by can see for himself some- 
thing of the output which ceases neither by day 
nor by night, and which extends itself over seven 
days a week. 

Just after the assassination at Sarajevo, which 
Germany made her pretext for the war, I was 
idling at what is now one of the greatest Red 
Cross centres and the most important continental 
base. That beautiful summer of 19 14 saw such 
an upheaval at Boulogne as has not been wit- 
nessed since Napoleon encamped his quarter of a 
million on the same ground where some of our 
Boulogne and Wimereux hospitals are now 
placed. 

The northern coast of France was beginning to 
get an unusually good "season." At Wimereux 
Mr. Hilton had just completed a golf course equal 
to many of those in East Lothian. The roses at 
the villas of Le Touquet were in their first glory. 
Little brown legs were already running in and 
out of the freakish houses on the splendid sands 
at Paris Plage. Boulogne-sur-Mer itself was 
very much what it was when Charles Dickens 
loved it. 

Mr. Merridew, half bookseller, half antiquary, 
had given me his essay on the English in Bou- 
logne, and we wandered up to see what remains 
of the house in which Dickens entertained his 



RED CROSS VISITS 147 

mid-Victorian circle. I stayed at the old Hotel 
Christol — now by a freak of fortune the Red 
Cross G.H.Q. in France. I was attached to the 
hotel because of its association with many happy 
holidays, and also by reason of the fact that it 
was there, far from the madding crowd, and the 
observant eye of Fleet Street, that Mr. Moberly 
Bell and I concluded the negotiations by which I 
became associated with The Times. The actual 
rooms in which these negotiations took place are 
now the centre of one of the most interesting por- 
tions of the work of the Red Cross, the Boulogne 
branch of the search for the missing. 

But this is no place for peace time reminiscence. 
I hurried home as events grew more ominous, and 
when I next saw the grey old town it was in the 
hands of the Allied forces and the Red Cross had 
seized my comfortable hostelry. 

Let me tell of the men who have done so much 
for our wounded at the Chief Foreign Base. 

I have pointed out the Red Cross has been for- 
tunate all through in the manner in which great 
public servants were attracted to its cause. At 
the outset Sir Alfred Keogh who, with Sir Arthur 
Sloggett, is recognised in Allied and even enemy 
countries as a great medical organiser, became 
first Chief Commissioner in France, until, as will 
be remembered, he was recalled to England and 
placed in charge of the medical service at the War 



148 AT THE WAR 

Office. Sir Arthur Sloggett, genial, alert and 
shrewd, then succeeded him as Director-General 
of the medical service of the British armies in 
France, and became at the same time the titular 
Chief Commissioner of the Joint Committee 
there, the Acting-Commissioner being Sir Savile 
Crossley, now Lord Somerleyton. 

Next Sir Courtauld Thomson most capably 
took things in hand at Boulogne, and when Sir 
Courtauld was urgently called East to look after 
Egypt, Malta, and the Mediterranean, Sir Ar- 
thur Lawley went to Boulogne and ably continued 
the chain of notable administrators. The present 
Commissioner is the Earl of Donoughmore, who 
gets through an immense amount of work with 
much rapidity, and whose Irish sense of humour 
greatly helps. At the time of writing Mr. E. A. 
Ridsdale, a Red Cross veteran and known 
throughout the whole service, is temporary act- 
ing Commissioner in France in the absence of 
Lord Donoughmore, who is trying to settle the 
differences between the soldiers and politicians in 
regard to Mesopotamia. 

While in Italy I encountered Lord Monson, 
who is the Italian Commissioner, and whose life 
is as active as it is interesting. The Commis- 
sioners for British East Africa, Mesopotamia, 
and Salonica are Colonel Montgomery, Colonel 
Jay Gould, and Mr. Herbert L. Fitzpatrick, re- 
spectively — all devoted servants of the Red Cross 



RED CROSS VISITS 149 

— with many others in distant fields worthy of 
mention and praise, concerning whom the limits 
of this book renders it impossible to deal. 

The glamour of distance lends enchantment to 
the idea of Red Cross work abroad. It is glam- 
our and nothing more, for the work is unending 
and the workers are in exile. But they have their 
reward, and are probably equally careless of our 
thanks or of our appreciation. 



II 

HOW SOME OF THE MONEY IS SPENT 

At this late period in the history of the War 
people are accustomed to take chapters on hospi- 
tals as read. But there is so great a variety in 
the hospitals of the British Red Cross Society 
both as to locale and internal arrangement, that 
the subject is not so dull as might be apprehended. 
First let me say that in the atmosphere of all the 
war that I have seen — British, Canadian, Aus- 
tralian, Belgian, French, and Italian — there is an 
activity and eagerness not to be found, and per- 
haps not necessary, in hospitals in peace time. I 
have no intention of comparing the merits of hos- 
pitals. Hospitals are as jealous of each other as 
politicians, generals, or even newspapers. If I 
dare hint at conspicuous efficiency there is the 
Red Cross Hospital at Netley, the wonderful hos- 
pital of the Order of St. John at Etaples, or any 
one of the army hospitals at Wimereux and else- 
where. 

Where the staffs of all are animated by so 
great a spirit of sacrifice, I will do my best to 
avoid odious comparisons by first describing the 

150 



RED CROSS VISITS 151 

British Red Cross Hospital which, at the time 
of writing-, is still close to where the shells are 
falling at Cormons near Gorizia. All the hospi- 
tals that are the occupants of converted buildings 
are a testimony to British adaptability and thor- 
oughness. This hospital at Cormons, which I 
have recollections of visiting on a day when the 
heat was that of the plains of Hindustan rather 
than of Europe, has encased itself in a large and 
typical Venetian villa. And our British Red 
Cross convoys in Italy are our little token of 
gratitude to our Italian Allies who entered the 
war in circumstances of extreme difficulty, whose 
commerce was so enmeshed in the German net, 
whose aristocracy was so convinced of the invin- 
cibility of Germany, whose Vatican was always 
so apprehensive of the power of Austria. The 
hospital is staffed, so I was informed, by quite a 
number of those who have a conscientious objec- 
tion to shedding blood in warfare. I know noth- 
ing of their political opinions, which I did not dis- 
cuss with them. I was there to examine the effi- 
ciency of the hospital. It was the 105th hospital 
I have entered in the last few years. 

Certainly it is most efficient, and if the young 
men I saw objected to the shedding of blood, they 
obviously had no objections about assuaging the 
woes of the blood-bespattered and mangled men 
who came out of the British Red Cross ambu- 
lances from the battle of Gorizia. 



152 AT THE WAR 

As I have pointed out elsewhere in one of the 
telegrams of which this book is largely composed, 
the very first person I met coming out of Gorizia 
and under shell fire which was pouring on the 
only remaining bridge, was Mr. Trevelyan — one 
of the heads of this efficient undertaking. If I 
have a criticism to offer of the British Red Cross 
Hospital at Cormons on that torrid day, it was 
that it was overcrowded, but that was not the 
fault of the hospital, but of the battle. Every 
possible means had been taken to extend the 
wards of this old spacious Venetian villa, the 
outcome of centuries of architectural knowledge 
and the art of living. 

A few days later I had an enthralling after- 
noon with Professor Boni in his most recent ex- 
cavations in the Palatine. There, two thousand 
years old, are the same rooms, the same floorings, 
the same use of the brilliant red one often found 
in the shells of Pompeian houses, that I saw 
among the mural decorations and in the wall 
paintings of the large and airy salon at Cormons. 
To Italian architectural largeness Mr. Trevelyan 
and his medical associates have added British 
practical hospital ways. I have recollections of 
long, perfectly ventilated rooms, the beds filled 
with bandaged men reading and fanning them- 
selves. Enemy patients were among them, 
treated, as in every case I have found in Allied 
hospitals, with as much care as our friends. It 



RED CROSS VISITS 153 

made one proud to hear from Italians that this 
hospital is as close to the firing line as is permit- 
ted. It rejoiced me to see our good ambulance 
drivers running their risk with the same imper- 
turbability as I have seen in the British ambu- 
lance drivers at Verdun and elsewhere. Some of 
the ambulances are now covered with a form of 
steel network, which may possibly prove some 
shield against shrapnel splinters, and which un- 
doubtedly gives confidence to the wounded inside. 
All the arrangements at this hospital are as good 
as those of our hospitals in France. The difficul- 
ties are much greater. Its base is in England. It 
has to be self-contained in every respect. It has 
to have its motor repair shop, and supply of spare 
parts, its own stock of drugs and the other para- 
phernalia of a war hospital. 

I am not an admirer of the type of conscien- 
tious objector who prefers the safety of quarry 
work miles to the rear of where men are never out 
of danger, but the conscientious objectors, almost 
entirely members of the Society of Friends, that 
I have met here and at Dunkirk impressed one 
favourably. There is not much choice of danger 
between driving an ambulance in the fire zone and 
driving an ammunition wagon. Some of the 
conscientious objectors are quite militant, and 
one feels that parental or family tradition has a 
good deal more to do with their opposition than 
any real objection on their part to handle a bomb 



154 AT THE WAR 

or bayonet. Their avidity for war news and their 
keenness in the struggle would, I think, shock 
some of the staid folk who sit so mute and gravely 
in Meeting Houses at Westminster, Jordans, or 
at Germantown, near the City of Brotherly Love. 
It is only mere justice to say of the Quakers, that 
many of them, at any rate, have done their best 
in a very difficult personal situation. They and 
a host of other people engaged in the war, includ- 
ing the regimental doctors and stretcher bearers, 
officers, non-commissioned officers and men of the 
R.A.M.C., are officially labelled non-combatants, 
and are unarmed. Germans in like case, and it is 
proved by photographic and other evidence, carry 
weapons, if only for self-defence, though I would 
not have it deduced that the rifles you may see 
slung across the shoulders of the German Red 
Cross men are used for aggression. But the only 
protection our so-called non-combatants have is 
their badge, which, in the excitement, dust and 
smoke of battle is not a very powerful protec- 
tion. 

I did not linger unduly at Cormons, because an 
interesting battle was raging close at hand, and 
every minute brought its stretcher with its con- 
scious or unconscious piece of dishevelled, blood- 
stained humanity, from which rose a great cloud 
of flies — so numerous as to be positively noisy. 
Inside the hospital there were flies, but not many. 
The fight against flies is one of the most wonder- 



RED CROSS VISITS 155 

ful victories of the hospitals — English and Ital- 
ian. At the great Italian base hospital at Udine 

the flies seem to have been absolutely vanquished. 
***** 

Beyond these remote outposts of the Red Cross 
there are others much farther afield, in Salonica, 
and Egypt, and farther away than that, which 
should be in the thoughts and prayers of the peo- 
ple at home. There is no going on leave for their 
staffs — there is nowhere to go. Life is one per- 
petual round of operations and of feeding and 
washing the war victims. At whatever hour of 
the day or night you may be reading this, remem- 
ber that in the hospitals all over the world this 
same noble work is being carried on. 

>!' «!' ^ ^1^ ^ti 

jji ^ ^ ^ *j* 

I have a recollection of another Red Cross 
hospital, and my recollection is aided by notes 
kindly provided by Major A. W. A. Irwin, R.A. 
M.C. It is officially known as No. 2 Red Cross 
Hospital, Rouen, and its arrangements and the 
list of the staff give some idea of what is re- 
quired in a hospital which is, comparatively 
speaking, by no means one of the largest. Rouen 
is an interesting centre of British activity abroad. 
In the days I spent there, there was a permanent 
English population of over 30,000. There is al- 
ways a large transient addition to this consider- 
able gathering of men and women, and No. 2 



156 AT THE WAR 

deals with their woes as well as those of the 
wounded. 

In the early days of the War, when the British 
Expeditionary Force landed on the Continent, 
among the many buildings and sites of the camps 
selected in the North of France for hospital pur- 
poses was the Grand Seminaire, Rouen. Curi- 
ously enough, this was used similarly by the Ger- 
mans during the Franco-Prussian War. 

The Seminaire is a comparatively modern 
three-storied brick and stone building standing on 
the hillside overlooking the city, and comprising 
the main quarters of the priests and students, 
with their classrooms, libraries, and infirmary un- 
der the same roof, and chapel adjoining, together 
with a detached house of considerable accommo- 
dation, a laundry, and outhouses in various cor- 
ners of the extensive orchards and gardens. 

Whilst preparations were being made by the 
Army authorities to convert this into a hospital, 
the enemy advanced to within a few miles, and it 
became necessary to evacuate. After a few 
weeks, however, the tide had turned sufficiently 
to allow the city to be reoccupied and work re- 
sumed, but instead of carrying out the original 
intention that the hospital should be purely mili- 
tary, the enterprise of the British Red Cross So- 
ciety was called upon, and this organisation was 
henceforward mainly responsible for the internal 
management and expense, running it as a part 



RED CROSS VISITS 157 

of the Army — as indeed in this critical and busy 
time they are running so many similar ventures, 
the value of which will probably never be fully 
estimated. 

Upon the taking over of the unit which oc- 
curred early in September, 1914, several aid posts 
and rest stations at the neighbouring villages and 
railway stations were opened and attached. 

The original personnel consisted of about sixty 
medical officers, sisters and orderlies in all, who 
were sent out by the British Red Cross Society 
from England to be placed under a regular R. A. 
M.C. Commandant. This staff became modified 
in various ways according to requirements, the 
strength for normal working being finally fixed 
to include the Commandant — a regular R.A.M.C. 
officer of the Army — 6 medical officers, i quar- 
termaster, matron and 32 sisters, 35 V.A.D. 
nurses (including housekeeper), y6 N.C.O.'s and 
men of all duties, comprising dispenser, radiogra- 
pher, theatre attendants, male nurse, ward order- 
lies, clerical staff, storekeepers, plumber, carpen- 
ter, cooks, motor lorry driver, gate police, post- 
man, and pioneers, together with 4 Boy Scouts 
for messenger and general duties. All of these 
are B.R.C.S. workers, except the Commandant, 
sergt-major, and 2 N.C.O.'s, who are regular 
R.A.M.C. men, not paid by the Society, the duties 
of the latter chiefly lying in dealing with official 
Army Returns and Statistics. 



158 AT THE WAR 

After the calling up and replacement of eligi- 
bles for military service, the whole male person- 
nel, except an irreducible minimum of skilled in- 
dispensable men, are physically unfit for the 
army, or not of military age. 

By the strenuous and incessant work of the 
original unit which came out, and that of Royal 
Engineers, the Seminaire was rapidly adapted 
for hospital use, and the detached building 
formed into the home for the staff. 

While this was being done, large numbers of 
wounded were already passing through, the first 
convoy being admitted on the 26th September, 
1914. 

In the winter of 1914-15, the accommodation 
being insufficient for the growing needs, two as- 
bestos huts of the usual Army pattern were set 
up in the cloistered quadrangle of the main build- 
ing, holding about twenty beds each, and with 
these the number of beds was increased to 178 as 
the normal figure; in busy times, however, this 
has been swelled into as many as 250, by the 
placing of additional beds in the wards and cor- 
ridors. 

The nursing accommodation consists of two 
large and two small wards of 28, 24, 8 and 7 
beds respectively, and two huts holding 20 and 16 
beds, besides which there are 90 student rooms, 
each holding two beds, except on one floor which 
is primarily reserved for Field Oflicers. A num- 



RED CROSS VISITS 159 

ber of these rooms are used for staff and other 
purposes, leaving their capacity for patients at 
73, giving a total of 176 as the normal number of 
beds. 

In many cases beds are named by donors to 
the funds of the Society, and the two large wards 
are now named "The English Public Schools 
Wards," these schools contributing largely to 
their maintenance. 

The departments of the hospital are of the 
usual numerous and varied character, comprising 
amongst others a large, well-lit and equipped op- 
erating theatre with anaesthetising, sterilising, 
and X-ray rooms adjoining. Next to these is the 
dispensary and out-patients' department, in the 
latter of which cases coming up from the base 
are examined and treated. The X-ray apparatus 
was the gift to the hospital by the firm of Elli- 
mans' Embrocation. 

There is also a pathological laboratory in which 
much important work is carried on by an expert 
bacteriologist, and a room equipped for massage 
and general electrical treatment. 

Slighter cases, who are able to move about, 
mess in a large and handsomely furnished room 
— formerly the Seminaire infirmary for sick 
priests and students. Through this room is a 
broad balcony covered by a glass awning, form- 
ing an ideal sun-room for patients, and looking 
across the garden with a magnificent view of the 



160 AT THE WAR 

cathedral and city, backed on the other bank of 
the river by tracts of forest land that stretch far 
away over the distant horizon. Under this bal- 
cony is a long arched verandah which serves a 
like purpose for the lower floor. 

The cooking of the hospital is done in the main 
kitchen, which being designed and furnished for 
the ordinary needs of the establishment in time 
of peace, is amply capable of catering for the 
maximum number of patients in hospital. Three 
other kitchens serve the home, N.C.O.'s and or- 
derlies' messes. 

Placed in convenient parts of the main build- 
ings and outhouses are the stores for linen, ra- 
tions, meat, coal, patients' kits, quartermaster's 
stores, and surgical necessaries, as well as the 
dairy, and a branch of the Expeditionary Force 
canteens. In the grounds also are the disinfector 
and incinerator, which play a large part in the 
general sanitation and health of a war hospital. 

The orderly staff are billeted in marquees, Al- 
wyn huts, and buildings in a part of the grounds 
picturesquely laid out, and sloping up to a stone 
terrace upon which some of the huts are pitched. 

For the first three months of 191 5, both officers 
and other ranks were treated, but subsequently 
the hospital was reserved for officers only. In 
October the hospital was inspected by the King 
during his visit to the Armies in France. 

No change of importance took place until No- 



RED CROSS VISITS 161 

vember, when about thirty V.A.D. nurses were 
sent out, and the male orderly staff reduced — it 
is hardly necessary to say that the splendid work 
of these ladies ever since has been of very great 
value. 

During the whole of the two years, the dispo- 
sition of the French in their capacity of landlords 
has been not only consistently courteous, but ex- 
ceedingly generous, and the fact that the late and 
present Archbishops of Rouen have resided in 
the chateau overlooking the hospital has always 
been one of considerable benefit; each of these in 
turn allowing free use of his private grounds and 
orchard which run up to the door of the palace — 
a gift which proved of the greatest value for rest 
and convalescent exercise of the patients — besides 
which the nave of the chapel is given over, and 
services are regularly held there by the resident 
chaplain. 

Since its opening, the hospital has treated in 
round figures a total of 10,000 cases, all of whom 
were British officers, except some 526 British 
N.C.O.'s and men, 60 nursing Sisters, 6 patients 
of French and other nationalities, and one Ger- 
man officer. 

The busiest period in its history was the six 
weeks ending the 12th of August, 1916, during 
which time 350 operations in the theatre were 
performed, as well as 300 dressings done under 
anaesthetics, and 590 X-ray examinations made — 



162 AT THE WAR 

a heavy share of work, which was duly com- 
mended by the authorities. 

Of the original staff which came out in Sep- 
tember, 1 9 14, only one Sister remains with the 
unit, though several others are still working in 
France. Their places, however, have been filled 
from time to time by the most skilled and well 
chosen workers, so that no unit can show a better 
record. Never in its history has the hospital been 
more highly efficient than at the present time, 
everything being done to give the British officer 
the best possible treatment and to make him as 
comfortable as possible. 



Ill 

THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 

In the earliest days of the War a beloved only 
son was missing, and his mother asked The Times 
if it could use its organisation in Paris to search 
the battlefields for news of him. One of the 
members of the French staff of the newspaper 
spent some three weeks in a vain endeavour to 
obtain definite information. That, I believe, was 
the first systematic attempt at what has now 
grown to be a very important branch of Red 
Cross work. 

Shortly afterwards Lord Robert Cecil went to 
Paris, and I remember finding him busily at work 
in a small room in the Hotel lena. The Depart- 
ment inaugurated by Lord Robert has now be- 
come one of the many useful branches of Red 
Cross work. Lord Robert easily set the example 
of thoroughness for which the department is 
known, for he himself went out personally to 
search cottages and chateaux for men who might 
have been carried there for treatment and to dis- 
cover, if possible, the whereabouts of the graves 
of the fallen. 

163 



164 AT THE WAR 

The news of this errand of mercy which the 
Red Cross Society was speeding travelled swift 
and far, and soon the calls made upon the staff 
available threatened to overwhelm it. The small 
effort, it was clear, must be extended — for the 
idea of abandoning it was not entertained. So 
larger premises were secured and branches were 
opened in Boulogne and other suitable places, and 
a central office was organised in London. Here 
a large number of charitably minded people la- 
boured to carry on the great mass of work which 
waited upon their efforts. So fast did the or- 
ganisation grow that the original accommodation 
at 83 Pall Mall proved quite inadequate. Lord 
Salisbury then provided larger quarters at 20 
Arlington Street, and in February, 191 5, the staff 
was transferred there. 

In July, however, more room had become neces- 
sary, and then the Duke of Norfolk placed the 
first floor of Norfolk House at the disposal of 
the workers. A month later this space was in- 
adequate, and the prisoners' department was 
transferred to London House. Finally, Lord 
Astor lent his house in Carlton House Terrace, 
and there the organisation is now housed. The 
prisoners' department has been constituted now 
as a separate system. 

These quick changes of home reveal clearly 
how strong a hold upon the public imagination 
the new work obtained, and how eager all those 



RED CROSS VISITS 165 

who had ceased to hear from their friends in 
France, or who knew that their friends were 
among the missing, were to avail themselves of 
help. They reveal also how thoroughly the or- 
ganisation won the public trust, how efficient it 
was even at the beginning, and how great a want 
was supplied by it. 

The principle of working had, of course, to be 
evolved, and the difficulties encountered in the 
course of this work were very many. The first 
searchers found themselves with a list of names, 
and with the whole of war-wracked France in 
which to search for those men. How were they 
to begin to search? Where were they to go? 
The armies were fully engaged in battles upon 
the issue of which hung the fate of Europe ; men 
had small leisure to spare for seeking for fallen 
comrades. 

It was seen that the first step must be to tap 
the resources of the hospitals. Members of the 
first little party with which Lord Robert Cecil 
was identified began to try to gain news of the 
missing by questioning the wounded. Sometimes 
this method led to nothing, but frequently a man 
would be found who had known the lost soldier 
and marked his fate. In those cases the anxieties 
aroused were answered at once, and fears and 
hopes set at rest ; in these cases, too, an indication 
was given as to where the soldier had fallen, if 



166 AT THE WAR 

he was dead, so that steps could be taken to mark 
his burial place. 

This identification of graves was carried on 
until the end of 19 14, when it ceased to be part 
of the duty of the department, the War Office 
having appointed a Graves Registration Commis- 
sion under Brigadier-General Fabian Ware. A 
close connexion, however, subsists between the 
Commission and the Red Cross Department. 

It was an obvious step from this to instal 
"watchers" in all hospitals. These watchers were 
given lists of names of missing men, and it was 
their duty to ask new patients if they knew of 
anything of these men, to note down their an- 
swers and to forward them to headquarters. 

On my last visit to Boulogne I spent a morning 
examining the organisation of a hospital ship, 
and was especially attracted to the work of a 
searcher — a Roman Catholic priest, the member 
of a well-known family — who, note-book in hand, 
was interrogating group after group of the lightly 
wounded on their way to "Blighty." He very 
kindly showed me the result of his morning's 
work, and it occurred to me then that the public 
might care to read a selection of these war 
dramas in miniature. At the end of this chapter 
I have appended a few that tell their own story, 
in the official language of the reporter, and also 
in the simple words of the bereaved. 

This system formed the backbone of the whole 



RED CROSS VISITS 167 

organisation, and upon this system the organisa- 
tion is based at the present day. As a system 
it has been brought to great perfection; every 
fragment of information is collected; the infor- 
mation is sent out in language which can be un- 
derstood by the least educated and by those who 
are bewildered by sorrow. Moreover, testimo- 
nials to the daring and devotion of the fallen are 
gathered, to their endurance under suffering, and 
to the manner in which their comrades risked and 
even lost their lives to save them from suffering, 
death or captivity. No letter, however trivial, re- 
mains unanswered; no enquiry, however difficult, 
is neglected. 

- Some of the tributes sent by comrades are 
documents of strange appeal. 

"Lieutenant ," wrote a private in his regi- 
ment, "was acting fine. The regiment went on 
about 20 yards from where he fell and took cover. 

.Private got permission to go back to him 

and take his identity disk and his revolver." 

"Your brother," wrote another soldier, "was a 
grand officer; his men would have followed him 
anywhere. He fell in the thick of it." And an 
officer wrote of one of his men, "He was a hero; 
he was an example to all of us." It is not difficult 
to understand how these simple expressions writ- 
ten by comrades who have shared the same dan- 
gers bring a measure of consolation to the fathers 
and mothers of our heroic dead. 



168 AT THE WAR 

Each enquiry is filed separately and becomes 
soon a dossier; the moment any piece of informa- 
tion is received by the Bureau it is transmitted to 
the friends of the soldier. These dossiers are hu- 
man documents of rare interest which none can 
read unmoved; they reveal, too, in convincing 
fashion the extraordinary amount of care and 
thought which is expended upon the work of 
tracing and searching for the missing. Indeed 
in this organisation is to be found the new^est and 
noblest form of detective enterprise, as full of 
thrills and surprises, of close deductive reasoning 
and resourceful cleverness as the memoirs of 
Sherlock Holmes. 

Here, for example, is a case selected at random 
from among the hundreds, nay thousands, which 
have been filed. The missing man may be called 
Private Smith. On the ist of October, 19 15, the 
Bureau received the following letter concerning 
him : — 

I should feel most thankful to you if you 
could possibly trace any news of my dear 
son reported ''Missing" at the Dardanelles 
in August. I have tried myself but failed. 

The enquiry was put in hand at once, and Pri- 
vate Smith's name added to the hospital lists. But 
on December 13th the desired information was 
still lacking. Nevertheless it w^as possible to re- 
port : — 



RED CROSS VISITS 169 

Private Roberts now in hospital abroad 
states that about 3 days after the landing 
they were advancing across a plain to go to 
the first line trenches when the Turks opened 
fire on them. Our informant was with your 
son until they had crossed the plain but did 
not see him fall. The stretcher-bearers never 
found him, and it was probable, therefore, 
that he had crawled into the long grass and 
so got out of sight. If this account is accu- 
rate it seems to suggest that your son has 
been made a prisoner by the Turks, and in 
this hope and belief we are continuing to 
make every possible enquiry with regard to 
the matter, and will at once communicate 
with you if any further or more reassuring 
news comes to hand. 

The reply to this letter shows how much relief 
it brought to the boy's mother ; she wrote : — 

I received your welcome letter. I am very 
grateful to you. I can assure you I shall 
wait very anxiously for any fresh news of 
my dear son, who seems to have been spirited 
away from me. 

The next letter the mother received was dated 
December 22nd. It ran: — 

We have received information stating that 
Private X., who was taken to X Hospital, 



170 AT THE WAR 

would be able to give you information about 
your son. 

Then on January 4th, the Bureau wrote fur- 
ther : — 

We have received another report which 
tends to confirm the possibility of your son 
having been taken prisoner by the Turks. 
Private Y states as follows : — "I was a ma- 
chine-gun driver. We were ordered to ad- 
vance, to take up a fresh position in the cen- 
tre at Suvla Bay. The sergeant and Smith 
got too far. Two were wounded and the 
gun and two tripods were lost, and we were 
ordered to retire. The ground which was 
open was occupied by the Turks. I went 
out again by daylight, and also by night, but 
could find no trace of the sergeant or Smith. 
I believe they were taken prisoners. I knew 

Smith well; he came from , was of 

medium height, and clean-shaven." 

The evidence seemed now to be tending to the 
prisoner of war theory, but still a great load of 
anxiety lay on the mother's mind. After seeing 
her son's friend in hospital and receiving this let- 
ter, she wrote: "It seems a number of people 
saw him up to a certain point and then missed 
him, which leaves a terrible doubt as to whether 
he was killed or taken prisoner." 



RED CROSS VISITS 171 

Confirmation of the reports already given was 
received in February in the shape of another 
statement, but the Bureau added: "Up to the 
present, however, we have not been able to obtain 
confirmation of these statements either from the 
list of prisoners which have reached us so far 
from Turkey, or from any other source." 

This letter was acknowledged with deepest 
thankfulness. Then came a bitter blow in the 
shape of another statement. 

They were nearly surrounded. Two were 
known to have been killed. One of them was 
missing at the time, but was found two 
months later in Malta. I believe he had been 
left for dead, but eventually crawled into the 
Cheshire lines. Another was said to have 
been wounded in the wrist, but has disap- 
peared and so has Smith. 

The outlook was now black indeed. In April, 
after receiving a further statement, the Bureau 
wrote to the soldier's mother : 

We are afraid that there is now little 
chance of your son being a prisoner, as we 
should have expected to have received his 
name in some of the lists which have reached 
us from Turkey. If, however, there are any 
other enquiries you would like us to make for 



17S AT THE WAR 

you, you have only to let us know. In the 
meantime we beg once again to assure you of 
our deep sympathy in the matter. 

No definite information perhaps, but how much 
better than the utter silence which had baffled the 
seeker before the Red Cross came to her help. 
At least she was able to picture the last hours of 
her gallant boy and to be with him in spirit during 
the moments of his devotion and sacrifice. Nor 
did the tragic courage of the words in her last 
letter to the Bureau "I am hoping still" express 
in any degree a diminution of the gratitude which 
she felt and acknowledged. 

Many of these dossiers, unhappily, tell only a 
story of sorrow; there are other cases, however, 
in which the miracle longed for so eagerly ac- 
tually happens, and the lost one is discovered. 
But it must be remembered that appeal is not made 
to the Bureau until the official sources have been 
carefully canvassed and other means have failed. 
In other words, the enquiry in most cases is di- 
rected to discovering either in what circumstances 
a man came by his death, or whether it is possible 
that he may be a prisoner of war. 

Another case, which affords a good illustration 
of the kind of work being carried on day by day, 
was first brought to the Bureau's notice in April 
of this year by a report from the War Office that 
Sergeant James was missing. "Anything," 



RED CROSS VISITS 173 

wrote his wife in asking for help, "would be bet- 
ter than this awful suspense." 

Some fifteen days later the Bureau was in pos- 
session of information which left little or no 
doubt that the poor fellow was killed. "An offi- 
cer," they wrote, "says that during the unsuccess- 
ful attack on , as he himself lay wounded on 

the ground, Sergeant James came up and spoke 
to him; and that instant the sergeant was very 
badly wounded in the chest. The officer feared 
at the time that your husband was killed, but just 
at this moment the retreat was ordered and the 
fallen were left on the spot." Further, a private 
gave the same account and adds that "from the 
sudden way in which your husband fell he was 
instantly killed. It was," he declares, "within lo 
yards of the German lines about 4 a.m., and bright 
moonlight. I saw him plainly; he was my own 
sergeant." 

The poor wife, to whom the names of the in- 
formants were given, verified the story herself in 
a few days, and wrote to the Bureau : 

Words simply cannot express my thanks 
for the kindness and attention you have 
taken on my behalf. I am indeed grateful. 
I am positively sure that if it had not been 
for you I should still be suffering in sus- 
pense. 



174 AT THE WAR 

A certificate of her husband's gallantry was 
afterwards sent to her. 

The gratitude of these stricken men and 
women for the help given them is one of the most 
wonderful features of this work. It is equalled 
in its beauty only by the courage and resignation 
which are displayed. A poor wife who was un- 
able to obtain exact information wrote: 

I am broken-hearted at having to confess 
that I have tried my very best to find him 
and have failed. So I shall have to place all 
my trust in our Heavenly Father and wait. 
When the war is over he may come back to 
me along with others of our dear, brave men 
whose wives and mothers have not allowed 
their fears to quench their hope. I thank you 
with all my heart, and I pray that God will 
be with you and the good work you are do- 
ing. 

Even more touching is this cry of pain, stifled 
in the uttering : "I am very grateful ; but, oh it is 
a bitter end to the long, long hoping." And this : 
"We accept, knowing that he did his duty." 

The desire for assurance that the dead man 
has found a grave, and that his grave is being 
tended, is also constantly being expressed, and 
there is a whole world of pathos in the reply of 
a mother who had received a description of her 



RED CROSS VISITS 175 

son's burial place. "We are all glad to know that 
he lies comfortable." 

It is an inspiring- thought that this splendid 
work of seeking is carried out almost entirely by- 
voluntary means. How much the success of it is 
due to Lord Robert Cecil's early work has al- 
ready been indicated. 

Not less important was the work carried on by 
Sir Louis Mallet, who during many months pre- 
sided over the Bureau in London. Sir Louis has 
now resigned and Lord Lucan has taken up the 
task. 

It has sometimes been asked why this work is 
carried out by an agency like the Red Cross and 
not by the War Office itself. The answer is, 
clearly, that no department of State could hope 
to touch the human chord which gives this work 
its greatest value. It would be wrong to expect 
an already overworked War Office to busy itself 
collecting small personal details, yet it is just 
these details for which all those who have suf- 
fered the great loss yearn so wistfully. That 
they should have this comfort is surely beyond 
all dispute. Who, for example, would deny to a 
mother a letter like this: 

We called him "Tom"; he was a dear 
good fellow. It happened on the left. I saw 
him fall. So far as I could see, it was all 
over. He himself said, "I am done for; go 



176 AT THE WAR 

on, lads." The ground where this happened 
was in our possession when I left. 

Indeed, the mother's reply furnishes the com- 
plete justification for the work being accom- 
plished. "We have heard nothing more from the 
War Office ; only that he was wounded and miss- 
ing, and but for your help and kindness we should 
still be waiting in suspense." 

Here are the complete dossiers: 

Tut Dossie:r of Pte:. J. L. D o? ths 2nd 

BivACK Watch 



28th July, 1 91 6. 
Could you possibly find out for me the fate 

of enclosed soldier, Pte. J. L. D , 2nd 

Black Watch, Indian Expeditionary Force? 
He was wounded on January 21st in the 
Persian Gulf. I am enquiring for the fam- 
ily. 

M H . (LadyH.) 

II 

nth August, 1916. 
We have only received one report as to 
the above, which we now send on to you 



RED CROSS VISITS 177 

though we consider it most unlikely to be 

true, as Pte. D 's name is not in any list 

of Turkish prisoners yet received. The re- 
port comes from Pte. J. R. , 2nd Black 

Watch, and is as follows: — 

"On 2 1st January, 191 6, in Mesopotamia 
I saw D in the Turkish ist line cap- 
tured, but trying- to get away and calling 
out, so that he is probably a prisoner of war. 
The English took the position, but had to re- 
tire for lack of reinforcements." 

We are continuing enquiries in the hope 
of gaining more satisfactory information. 

To Lady H . 



Ill 



26th September, 1916. 

It is with great pleasure that we can now 
send you the news that Pte. D is a re- 
leased prisoner of war and has been inva- 
lided to India. We had heard nothing be- 
yond the report sent to you on the nth Au- 
gust, which we hesitated to believe. This 
good news has come to us from Basra to- 
day. 

Letters to Pte. D should be addressed 



178 AT THE WAR 

with full regimental particulars, c/o **Cas- 
ualties," Bombay, and the envelope should 
be marked in the corner "Exchanged Pris- 
oner of War." 

We shall be greatly obliged if you will let 

us know whether Pte. D 's relatives had 

had any intimation that he was a- prisoner of 
war, and whether he had been able to com- 
municate with them. Such knowledge, if 
you can kindly supply it, may be of the great- 
est assistance to us in comforting other anx- 
ious relatives. 

To Lady H . 

IV 

9th October, 191 6. 

Pte. D 's friends have not heard from 

him at all, so that they were very grateful 
for your letter and his address. Thank you 
so much for your kind help. 
Yours truly, 

M H . 

V 

13th October, 19 16. 

Lady H has made enquiry about my 

husband, Pte. J. L. D , 2nd Black Watch. 

I am very pleased to here the news of him. 
I heard from the Office at Perth that he was 



RED CROSS VISITS 179 

a released Pris. of War, and the 2nd of Oct. 
I heard again that he as a gunshot wound 
in the head and heel, and he is at Colaba War 
Hospital, Bombay, India. I should like to 
here from him. I have only had one card 
from him since he was wounded, and that 
was to say he was at Bagdad. The last let- 
ter he wrote was the i6th of Jan. and he was 
wounded on the 21st Jan. so its nine months 
he has been wounded I do hope he is getting 
better I have only seen him once in the two 
years and I have lost my Brother and Father 
since he as been away so I have had a great 
worry and I have three little chieldren so I 
do hope he will be spared to see them again. 
I wonder if he is too ill to write as I have not 
heard from him, and do you think he would 
be able to come home if he is well enough 
and would you be able to let me know if he 
is badly wounded as I am very anxious to 
know after such a long time. I should be 
greatly oblige. 

E. D . 



VI 



1 6th October, 19 16. 
Your letter of the 13th crossed ours to 

Lady H . Probably by this time you will 

have received the very cheering account of 



180 AT THE WAR 

your husband which we have sent to her for 
you. We told her that we had received a 
report through the War Office that Pte. 
D was in Colaba War Hospital, Bom- 
bay, that his wound was healed and his con- 
dition good. 

This will comfort you very much as he is 
evidently progressing really well. We do 
not know what his movements will be, but if 
we should hear at any time that he has left 
India, we will let you know. 

With many congratulations, 

To Mrs. E. D . 



The: Dossie^r of Fught Sub-Lie:ute:nant C. G. 
OF THE RoYAi, Naval Air Service 



To G. H. G., Esq. 

July 1 8th, 191 6. 
With reference to your enquiry for Flight 
Sub-Lt. C. G., Royal Naval Air Service, we 
have received the following report from 

Flight Sub-Lt. E , now in hospital at 

Bombay, who states : — 

''About the 20th April, G went up car- 
rying food to Kut. He was attacked by a 



RED CROSS VISITS 181 

German machine. His observer was shot 

dead, and G had to land in Turkish 

trenches, and was made a Prisoner. The 
Turks sent for his valise and box to Orah 
and reported that he is well though slightly 
wounded." 

We have not received Flight Sub-Lt. 

G 's name on any Prisoners' List yet, but 

we will inform you as soon as we do so. 
Prisoners generally are not able to communi- 
cate with their relations for about the first 
four months. 

II 

July 27th, 1916. 
We beg to send you a further report which 

we have received about Mr. G . Our 

informant, who is now in hospital at Alex- 
andria, states: — 

"I saw Mr. G start on the 24th to 

carry food to our chaps in Kut, taking with 

him as observer, Lt. F , from the Nor- 

folks. As they passed over the Turkish lines 
they were attacked by a Fritz (Turkish or 
German aeroplane), the observer was killed 
and Mr. G , who was fired at continu- 
ously, was brought down. Either that day 
or the next, the Turks sent a message by 
Flag of Truce to Commander B that 



182 AT THE WAR 

Mr. G was wounded and wanted his kit. 

Everything he had was accordingly sent up 
stream by motor boat to a place agreed on 
where the Turks met it. Commander B — — 
is now at Zanzibar, East Africa. The rec- 
ords have probably gone to England. Mr. 

G was a most enthusiastic pilot, and 

when he could would go over with food three 
or four times a day. It was no place for 
seaplanes, and I remember him saying the 
Turks would get him soon, before it actually 
happened." 

This is a more detailed account than the 
last we sent you and tends to confirm that re- 
port, and we very much hope that when we 
obtain full lists of the prisoners in the hands 
of the Turks we shall find his name in them. 

Assuring you of our sincere sympathy in 
your anxiety. 

Ill 

July 28th, 191 6. 
I beg to thank you for your letter of yes- 
terday's date giving me much interesting in- 
formation regarding my son, which has been 

communicated to you by A. J , R.N.A.S. 

You have been most kind in all your eflforts 
in my interest, and I tender my thanks to all 
those who work so unselfishly for others. 



RED CROSS VISITS 183 

Will you please accept the enclosed £25 
as a second donation to your funds from 
Mrs. E. M. a? 

Yours faithfully, 

G. H. G . 

IV 

12. ix. 16. 
I have much pleasure in informing you 

that Flight Lt. C. B. G has been released 

by the Turks. 

He has cabled from Amara under date 
loth September that he has been exchanged 
and is well in health. 

Thanking you for your kind efforts on his 
behalf. 

G. H. G . 

V 

September 14th, 19 16. 

We are so glad to hear that you have had 
a cable from your son, Flight Sub-Lieuten- 
ant C, G , Royal Naval Air Service. 

We have also heard from our Office at 
Basra and were on the point of writing to 
you to say that we had heard that he was an 
exchanged Prisoner of War from Baghdad, 
was quite well, and sailed for India in the 
Hospital ship Varsova on September loth. 

We do indeed congratulate you. 



184 AT THE WAR 

This, then, is a labour of love, belonging in its 
essence to Red Cross work as that work has come 
to be understood throughout our land. It is a 
labour which eases the sorest wounds of warfare 
and which indirectly brings great comfort to the 
fighting men themselves, many of whom are 
haunted by the fear of being numbered among the 
lost and so becoming a source of suffering to their 
friends. 

The British soldier needs no advertisement, but 
it is not possible to close this chapter without plac- 
ing on record the great help which all ranks of the 
Army give to the searchers for information about 
the missing. No trouble is grudged by these men 
if it is likely to help to relieve the burden of their 
comrades' womenfolk. The wounded in hospi- 
tals, indeed, seem to forget their own pains on the 
instant when this appeal is made to them. Many 
a sore heart owes its consoling to the action of 
these splendid fellows; and many a wife and 
mother treasures to-day as a priceless heritage 
the letters written by them in memory of a fallen 
friend. "I thought perhaps you might like to 
hear" — the letters often begin, and the note of 
apology frequently runs all through them. It is 
the way of the British soldier; for within the 
breast of a hero he cherishes ever the heart of a 
little child. 



LIFE IN REIMS 



LIFE IN REIMS 
The: Sign that wiIvI. be: Ke^pt for Eve:r 

R:^iMS. 

As our motor sped toward the stricken town 
this sunny afternoon, and we got our first view 
of the two towers of the great church, we rejoiced 
not a little that, at a distance of a mile, all looked 
as it did before the Germans came, and when 
we reached Reims itself there were not, at that 
particular entrance gate, many signs of change. 
We were glad to be away from war for a while 
and to see women and children. For hours sol- 
diers clad in horizon blue, with their paler blue 
helmets, had been our only companions. Mighty 
motor-lorries, vast collections of forage wagons, 
travelling kitchens, automobile searchlights, and 
the rest of the apparatus of war had blocked the 
roads for many leagues. In the city itself, ex- 
cept for shut shops as on Sunday, and a look of 
desolation, our first impressions were that the 
story of Reims had been exaggerated. 

But suddenly, on our way to the cathedral, in 
the Boulevard de la Paix, strangely named, there 
were whole mansions down and others so muti- 

187 



188 AT THE WAR 

lated that they exposed the long-kept privacy of 
chandeliered salons, bedrooms now wrecked, and 
hanging staircases. It was in the little square in 
front of the cathedral that we found Kultur dis- 
played in its horrid nakedness. The Archbish- 
op's palace looks like a house in Pompeii, the 
cathedral's face, partly sandbagged, is ruined. 

Perhaps my readers have known and loved 
Reims, and can recall the scene at the great west 
entrance. There is a humble little equestrian fig- 
ure of Jeanne d'Arc, carrying now in her hand 
a French flag and decorated around the plinth 
with many tributes from passing soldiery, who 
have paused to note the marvel of the fact that 
her sanctity has not been disturbed by even one 
shell fragment. To the right of this little figure 
of Joan the Maid, and facing the cathedral is the 
Hotel of the Lion d'Or, the front damaged, but 
the house itself, though within a child's stone- 
throw of the cathedral, hardly hurt. To-day the 
hotel, reminiscent of the happy holidays of thou- 
sands of English and American tourists, bears 
itself bravely. There were even a few daffodils 
in the salle a manger, and there is a comfortable 
dug-out below stairs. There v/as exactly one for- 
eign visitor who shared with us the excellent meal 
provided — Mr. Frank Hedges Butler, a well- 
known friend of France and one of the pioneers 
of the automobile. Here at Reims, with the 
Huns almost within rifle shot, and in places even 



LIFE IN REIMS 189 

more closely adjoining the firing line, the French 
provide wonderful meals. 

I was asked to perform one little act of justice 
in connexion with the hotel. It is held by Mme. 
Pfister. Her foreign-looking name gave rise to 
ridiculous rumours that from the hotel signals 
were sent to the Hun artillery whereby the hotel 
was spared and the cathedral shelled. Mme. Pfis- 
ter is French and her son is in the trenches. 
When the golden tide of English and American 
tourists returns every franc will be needed to pay 
for the devastation sustained, and no unjust slur 
should deprive this hotel of even one possible 
patron. 

Reims is bombarded with persistent regularity. 
Its stricken folk are subject to attacks vastly 
more serious than any Zeppelin raid, and so often 
that the French communiques have ceased to re- 
port them. The world outcry has saved the re- 
mains of the cathedral. 

Let us take a little turn in the town while the 
guardian of the locked church is fetched. We 
find that quite a number of people of all classes 
remain. The old men and women that one asso- 
ciates with war are seated in the doorways of 
such houses as are not closed or in ruins, children 
play in the streets their shrill and merry games, 
a funeral passes with its little procession follow- 
ing. Here and there whole streets are closed, 
while in others a superficial observer would im- 



190 AT THE WAR 

agine that life in Reims was going on as usual. 
Judging by the wall advertisements, there seem 
to be some amusements, such as kinematographs. 
There is no lack of excellent food in the shops 
that are open. The people seem quite undis- 
turbed by the continual murmur of cannon, and 
indeed after a few minutes one is oblivious of it. 

Reims is a queer but quite an attractive 
melange, difficult to describe. Almost every one 
carries a gas mask; the men keep theirs in com- 
pact tin cases slung from the wrist or attached 
to bicycle handle, the women in various kinds of 
bags. These masks can be bought at any chem- 
ist's and are so prepared as to need merely damp- 
ing with water when required. The preponder- 
ance of the remaining native population is, of 
course, feminine, mostly workgirls who work in 
the great champagne caves, and in this matter 
I am asked to state that the war vintage of 191 5 
is believed to be the best since 1900. Here, deep 
down underground, thousands of women are busy 
filling and turning the acres of bottles that are 
arranged in the wonderful subterranean high- 
ways. 

We obtained permission to descend into the 
famous Pommery cellars, which are laid out in 
what are really streets of wine, the whole form- 
ing an underground city of considerable extent. 
MiUions of bottles are twisted by a dexterous 
movement of the hand each day. The process 



LIFE IN REIMS 191 

of preparing the champagne which will one day 
sparkle on distant tables wherever there is mer- 
riment is so complicated that the relatively high 
cost of this wine can be easily understood. The 
Remois are highly indignant at letters that have 
appeared in the Press advocating the removal 
of French wines from British tables. One of 
them remarked, "There are the bombs of the 
Boches over us by night, and one reads in our 
newspapers by day of the economic bonds of John 
Bull, safe in his island." 

We have not time to tarry in the deep chalk 
streets of wine, many of which are named after 
American and English cities, such as Manches- 
ter-street, Liverpool-street, New York-street, and 
the rest, for Notre Dame is our aim. We have 
made a long journey to see it, and we are unfor- 
tunate to have found its guardian away. When 
we emerge to the surface and to sunlight and the 
sound of guns, we hasten to the cathedral so as 
to be there at the appointed moment, when what 
remains of the great window will be at its best 
in the setting sun. We are amused, en passant, 
by a glimpse of a real Parisian elegante, with the 
extremely high hat of the moment, the wide skirt, 
and the showy boots, carrying in her right hand 
her Pekinese and in her left her gas mask, look- 
ing as though she had just walked in from the 
Avenue du Bois. A truly remarkable sex! 

The people of Reims keep the shell of the ca- 



192 AT THE WAR 

thedral strictly closed, as though to hide its hu- 
miliation from such few soldier travellers in the 
war zone as have time to pause a moment in their 
urgent and bloody business. First, after glanc- 
ing at the ruined facade, whose graven figures 
were considered one of the masterpieces of their 
period, we pondered some minutes in the re- 
mains of the Archbishop's palace. We had known 
it in happier days. The beautiful Salle du Tau, 
where the coronation banquets were held, had a 
wonderful fifteenth-century chimney, but noth- 
ing remains to-day of the Archbishop's palace 
but wreckage and blackened and ruined walls. 
Modern artillery is mathematically accurate. 
For some fiendish reason the palace had been es- 
pecially chosen as an objective. It is a building 
of only two storeys, so low as to be of no possible 
value as an observation post.. The guardian told 
us that over a thousand shells fell therein. 

We passed by a little door into the great 
church, whose doors had been continuously open, 
since the rebuilding in 148 1, and whose walls had 
contained so much magnificence in the past. Gen- 
erations of afifectionate guardians have seen to it 
that the coronation place of kings was swept and 
garnished each day. Now, save for the wild 
pigeons who are taking up their residence and 
whose peaceful cooing mingles strangely with 
the distant booming of German guns, it is bereft 
of life. The warm scent of incense is gone. The 



LIFE IN REIMS 193 

whole vast space of the cathedral, which looks so 
much bigger than it did before so much of the 
internal woodwork was burned, is desolation it- 
self. An attempt had been made at a tidying up, 
and the little, old guardian who shows us the 
ruins, indicating the obvious deliberation with 
which various parts of the cathedral have been 
shelled, tells us that very soon all will be restored 
and well. He has the absolute confidence of 
practically every Frenchman we met that the bar- 
barians will soon leave France. He tells us with 
delight that the famous tapestries, which will be 
remembered by all, were taken away at the first 
news of the invasion of the Huns and are safe, 
as is also, we found afterwards, the beautiful 
Church of St. Remi. 

Many people ask about the glass of Reims and 
what has happened to it. Much of it is gone. A 
great deal of it is passing over the world in frag- 
ments as souvenirs. Set in the aluminium rings 
made in the trenches from German fuzes, the 
blue glass is difficult to distinguish from sapphire. 

As the moment came for saying farewell to 
Notre Dame the great rose window over the main 
portal illuminated the whole church. Partly be- 
cause half of it is destroyed, the light came in 
strongly, and as the sun sank a fierce beam lit up 
a horrible discoloration on the stone pavement. 
"That," said our guide with much feeling, "is the 
burnt blood of the wounded Germans who had 



194 AT THE WAR 

sought refuge in the cathedral and who were done 
to death by their own incendiary shells. That 
sign we shall keep forever as a warning to the 
world of the danger of Hun ferocity." 



BEFORE VERDUN 



BEFORE VERDUN ^ 
Th^ Triumph o^ France; 

Be^fore; Vfrdun, March 4. 

What is the secret motive underlying the Ger- 
man attempt to break the French line at Verdun, 
in which the Crown Prince's Army is incurring 
such appalling losses ? Is it financial, in view of 
the coming war loan ? Is it dynastic ? Or, is it 
intended to influence doubting neutrals? From 
the evidence of German deserters it is known 
that the attack was originally intended to take 
place a month or two hence, when the ground was 
dry. Premature spring caused the Germans to 
accelerate their plans. There were two final de- 
lays owing to bad weather, and then came the 
colossal onslaught of February 21. 

The Germans made a good many of the mis- 
takes we made at Gallipoli. They announced that 
something large was pending by closing the Swiss 

^ This telegram (and the others) was, necessarily, 
written in great haste and with the military censorship in 
view. It appeared in whole and in part in more than 
three thousand newspapers in many languages, at a 
moment when there was grave anxiety as to the fate 
of Verdun, 

197 



198 AT THE WAR 

frontier. The French, who were not ready, were 
also warned by their own astute Intelligence De- 
partment. Their avians were not idle, and, if 
confirmation were needed, it was given by desert- 
ers, who, surmising the horrors that were to 
come, crept out of the trenches at night, lay down 
by the edge of the Meuse till the morning, and 
then gave themselves up, together with informa- 
tion that has since proved to be accurate. Things 
went wrong with the Germans in other ways. A 
Zeppelin that was to have blown up important 
railway junctions on the French line of commu- 
nications was brought down at Revigny, and in- 
cidentally the inhabitants of what remains of that 
much-bombarded town were avenged by the spec- 
tacle of the blazing dirigible crashing to the 
ground and the hoisting with their own petards 
of 30 Huns therein. It is not necessary to re- 
capitulate that the gigantic effort of February 21 
was frustrated by the coolness and tenacity of 
the French soldiers and the deadly curtain fire 
of the French gunners. 

Though a great deal of calculated nonsense has 
been sent out in official communiques and dilated 
upon by dithyrambic Berlin newspaper corre- 
spondents as to the taking by storm of the long- 
dismantled Fort at Douaumont, nothing what- 
ever has been admitted by the Germans as to the 
appalling price in blood they have paid since Feb- 
ruary 21 and are still paying. The French losses 



BEFORE VERDUN 199 

are, and have been, insignificant. I know the of- 
ficial figure. It has been verified by conversa- 
tions with members of the British, French, and 
American Red Cross Societies, who are obviously 
in a position to know. The wounded who pass 
through their hands have, in many cases, come 
straight from where they have seen dead Ger- 
mans, as has been described by scores of wit- 
nesses, lying as lay the Prussian Guard in the 
first Battle of Ypres. The evidence of one army 
as to another army's losses needs careful cor- 
roboration, and I have that in the evidence of 
many German prisoners interrogated singly and 
independently at the French Headquarters. 

Beyond this there are the careful conclusions, 
checked and sifted, of experienced and compe- 
tent soldiers, who have every reason not to un- 
derestimate the remaining strength of the enemy. 
These conclusions are, roughly, that of the Ger- 
man Corps known to have been engaged the 3rd 
and 1 8th Corps have been entirely used up, or 
"spent," as the military phrase goes. The 7th 
Reserve Corps has lost half, and the 15th Corps 
three-quarters, of its available strength. Ac- 
cording to these authorities, whose opinion, I re- 
peat, can be taken as erring on the side of pru- 
dence, the German forces had by the evening of 
March 3 "used up," in addition to those already 
mentioned, a part of the 113th Division, the 5th 
Reserve Corps, and the Bavarian Ersatz Divi- 



200 AT THE WAR 

sion, without taking into account the losses of 
other reinforcements, whose presence on the bat- 
tlefield has not yet been definitely ascertained. 

More direct, though possibly less reliable, evi- 
dence was secured by questioning closely a num- 
ber of the German prisoners. Among them were 
men from all parts of the Empire, Alsatians, 
Pomeranians, Hessians, Silesians, Prussians, 
Hanoverians, Bavarians, Wiirttemburgers, and 
Prussian Poles. All related experiences identical 
in substance, though varying in detail. 

The case of one man, belonging to the 3rd Bat- 
talion of the 1 2th Regiment of the 5th Division 
of the 3rd Army Corps, may be taken as charac- 
teristic. On the morning of February 28 this 
prisoner reached the Fort of Douaumont and 
found there one battalion of the 24th Regiment, 
elements of the 64th Regiment and of the 3rd 
Battalion of Jager. The strength of his company 
had been, on February 21, 200 rifles with four 
officers. On February 22 it had fallen to 70 rifles, 
with one officer. The other companies had suf- 
fered similar losses. On February 23 the pris- 
oner's company was reinforced by 45 men, bear- 
ing the numbers of the 12th, the 52nd, the 35th, 
and the 205th Regiments. These men had been 
drawn from various depots in the interior. The 
men of the 12th Regiment believed that five regi- 
ments were in reserve in the woods behind the 
3rd Corps, but, as time went on and losses in- 



BEFORE VERDUN 201 

creased without any sign of the actual presence 
of these reserves, doubt spread whether they 
were really in existence. The prisoner declared 
that his comrades were no longer capable of fresh 
effort. 

None of the prisoners questioned estimated the 
losses suffered by their companies at less than 
one-third of the total effectives. Taking into 
account all available indications, it may safely be 
assumed that, during the fighting of the last 13 
days, the Germans have lost in killed, wounded, 
and prisoners at least 100,000 men. 

The profits — as the soldier speaks of such mat- 
ters — being so small, what then are the over- 
whelming motives that impel the attack on Ver- 
dun, and the chicanery of the German coinmu- 
niquesf Is it for any of the reasons I have given 
above, or is it an effect of economic pressure 
which leads to the miscalculation that the possi- 
ble taking over of the French line at Verdun is 
a means of ending the war? The Germans are 
so wont to misread the minds of other nations 
that they are quite foolish enough to make them- 
selves believe this or any other foolish thing. It 
cannot be pretended that the attack has in it any- 
thing of military necessity. It was urged for- 
ward at a time of year when weather conditions 
might prove, as they have proved, a serious han- 
dicap in such matters as the moving of big guns 
and the essential observation by aeroplanes. 



202 AT THE WAR 

The district of Verdun lies in one of the coldest 
and also the most misty sectors in the long line 
between Nieuport and Switzerland. Changes of 
temperature, too, are somewhat more frequent 
here than elsewhere; and so sudden are these 
changes that not long ago here occurred, on a 
part of the front, one of nature's furious and ro- 
mantic reminders of her power to impose her 
will. The opposing French and German trenches, 
their parapets hard frozen, are so close that they 
are actually within hearing of each other. To- 
wards dawn a rapid thaw set in. The parapets 
melted and subsided, and two long lines of men 
stood up naked, as it were, before each other, face 
to face with only two possibilities — wholesale 
murder on the one side or the other, or a tem- 
porary unofficial peace for the making of fresh 
parapet protections. 

The situation was astounding and unique in 
the history of trench warfare. The French and 
German officers, without conferring and unwill- 
ing to negotiate, turned their backs so that they 
might not see officially so unwarlike a scene, and 
the men on each side rebuilt their parapets with- 
out the firing of a single shot. 

This instance serves to illustrate the precari- 
ous weather in which the Germans have under- 
taken an adventure in the quick success of which 
the elements play such a part. That the attack 



BEFORE VERDUN 203 

would certainly prove more costly to them than 
to the French the German Staff must have 
known. That the sufferings of the wounded ly- 
ing out through the long nights of icy wind in the 
No-Man's Land between the lines would be great 
did not probably disturb the Crown Prince. It 
is one of the most gruesome facts in the history 
of the War that the French, peering through the 
moonlight at what they thought to be stealthily 
crawling Germans, found them to be wounded 
men frozen to death. 

During the war, in France and in Flanders, in 
camps and in hospitals, I have conversed with at 
least lOO Germans. Prisoners' talk is always 
to be accepted with great reserve, but the pris- 
oners of the Verdun campaign have so plainly 
horror and misery depicted upon their counte- 
nances that I need no other evidence as to the 
tragedy through which they have passed. 

The vast battle of Verdun might have been ar- 
ranged for the benefit of interested spectators, 
were it not that the whole zone for miles around 
the great scene is as tightly closed to the outer 
world as a lodge of Freemasons. Furnished with 
every possible kind of pass, accompanied by a 
member of the French Headquarters Staff in a 
military car driven by a chauffeur whose steel 
helmet marked him as a soldier, I was neverthe- 
less held up by intractable gendarmes. My col- 



204 AT THE WAR 

league (Mr. Wickham Steed ^) the chief of the 
foreign department of The Times, who assisted 
me in the many enquiries I was presently allowed 
to make in and about the battlefield, was detained 
with me at a point twenty-five miles away from 
the great scene. Even at that distance the mourn- 
ful and unceasing reverberation of the guns was 
insistent, and, as the sentry examined our papers 
and waited for telephonic instructions, I counted 
more than 200 of the distant voices of Kultur. 

As one gets nearer and nearer the great arena 
on which the whole world's eyes are turned to- 
day, proofs of French efficiency and French thor- 
oughness are countless. I do not pretend to any 
military knowledge other than a few scraps gath- 
ered in some half-dozen visits to the War, but 
the abundance of reserve shells for guns from 
mighty howitzers to the graceful French mitrail- 
leuse of the aeroplane, of rifle ammunition, of pe- 
trol stores, and of motor-wagons of every de- 
scription, was remarkable. I can truly say that 
the volume exceeded anything in my previous ex- 
perience. 

^ Mr, Steed speaks French, German and Italian as a 
native, knows other languages sufficiently for intercourse, 
and does not object to the voyaging vagaries of his 
friend, the writer of the fragments that make up this 
book. During our Italian, Swiss, Spanish and French 
rush in the autumn, in most part of which he was with 
me, he tells me that our sleep average was three and a 
half hours in each twenty-four. — N. 



BEFORE VERDUN 205 

As one approaches the battle the volume of 
sound becomes louder and at times terrific. And 
it is curious, the mingling of peace with war. 
The chocolate and the pneumatic tyre advertise- 
ments on the village walls, the kilometre stone 
with its ten kilometres to Verdun, a village cure 
peacefully strolling along the village street, just 
as though it were March, 19 14, and his congre- 
gation had not been sent away from the war zone, 
while their houses were filled by a swarming 
army of men in pale blue. Such a wonderful blue 
this new French invisible cloth! A squadron of 
cavalry in the new blue and their steel helmets 
passes at the moment, and gives the impression 
that one is back again in what were known as the 
romantic days of war. 

When one has arrived at the battlefield, there 
are a dozen vantage points from which with 
glasses, or, indeed, with the naked eye, one can 
take in much that has happened. Verdun lies in 
a great basin with the silvery Meuse twining in 
the valley. The scene is, on the whole, Scottish. 
Verdun, from where I saw it, might be Perth, 
and the Meuse the Tay. Small groups of firs 
darken some of the hills, giving a natural re- 
semblance to Scotland. 

The town is being made into a second Ypres by 
the Germans. Yet, as it stands out in the sun- 
light, it is difficult to realise that it is a place 
whose people have all gone, save a few of the 



206 AT THE WAR 

faithful who live below ground. (Ypres looked 
like that the first time I saw it soon after the 
war began.) The tall towers of Verdun still 
stand. Close by us is a hidden French battery, 
and it is pretty to see the promptitude with which 
it sends its screaming shells back to the Germans 
within a few seconds of the despatch of a missive 
from the Huns. One speedily grows accustomed 
to the sound and the scene, and can follow the 
position of the villages about which the Germans 
endeavour to mislead the world by wireless every 
morning. 

We journey farther afield, and the famous fort 
of Douaumont is pointed out. The storming of 
Fort Douaumont as related by the German des- 
patches is on a par with the sinking of the Tiger 
and the recent air bombardment of Liverpool. 
All the world knows that the Tiger is, as she was 
before the Germans sank her in their newspapers, 
one of the finest ships in the world, and that 
the air bombardment of Liverpool was imagined 
in Berlin. The storming of Fort Douaumont, 
gunless and unmanned, was about as important, 
a military operation of little value. A number 
of the Brandenburgers climbed into the gunless 
fort, and some of them are still there, supplied 
precariously with food by their comrades at 
night. They are practically surrounded by the 
French, whose Headquarters Staff regard the 
whole incident as a simple episode in the give- 



BEFORE VERDUN 207 

and-take of war. The announcement of the fall 
of Fort Douaumont to the world evinces the great 
anxiety of the Germans to magnify anything 
concerning Verdun into a great event. It should 
also cause people to apply a grain of salt to Ger- 
man official communiques before swallowing 
them. 

These modern battles have now been described 
so frequently that there is little new to be written 
of them. Of the conflict at Verdun it can be said 
that on a fine day and out of sight of the horrors 
of the hand-to-hand encounters its surroundings 
make it a beautiful battle. There is rather more 
bird life in this part of France than in some oth- 
ers, and we noticed with particular interest the 
spirit and the cheerful song of a lark as it 
climbed skywards hard by the spot where a 
French "75" was splitting the ears with its snap 
and scream. 

As we leave the battlefield and come to where 
is the first Red Cross Station it rejoices our Eng- 
lish eyes to notice the number of English ambu- 
lances bearing the inscription of the British Red 
Cross and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, 
which are allowed to aid the French. It will 
please the miners and mine-owners of Derbyshire 
and Nottinghamshire to know that many of the 
wonderful carriages are of their gift. The Red 
Cross flags that flutter pathetically gay, as the 
cars rush along the well-cared-for road, make 



208 AT THE WAR 

one anxious, but a few enquiries prove that the 
losses of the day have been inconsiderable. 

As night falls we come across our first convoy 
of the great hooded motor lorries, which my com- 
panion counted by the thousand while we were 
on our way between Paris and the Meuse. The 
War has reduced motor transport to a science, 
and in no way is French efficiency better demon- 
strated than in the manner in which they have 
added to the carrying capacity of their railways 
and great canals. They have utilised thousands 
of miles of poplar and lime-lined roads for me- 
chanical transport at 15 miles an hour. On one 
road alone we counted 20 motor convoys, each 
composed of about a hundred wagons, and each 
group indicated by some simple mark, such as a 
four-leaved shamrock, an ace of hearts, or a 
comet. 

Who are the men who are organising the great 
battle for the French side? Let me at once say 
that they are young men. General Petain, one 
of the discoveries of the war, till lately colonel, is 
still in his late fifties; most of the members of 
his stafif are much younger. One hears of luxury 
at Headquarters, but I have not experienced it, 
either at our own Headquarters or at the French. 
General Petain, when I enjoyed his hospitality 
at luncheon, drank tea. Most of his young men 
contented themselves with water, or the white 
wine of the Meuse. 



BEFORE VERDUN 209 

In the brief meal he allowed himself the Gen- 
eral discussed the battle as though he were mere- 
ly an interested spectator. In appearance he re- 
sembles Lord Roberts, though he is of larger 
build. In accordance with the drastic changes 
that the French, like the Germans, are making 
in their Command, his rise has been so rapid that 
he is little known to the French people, though 
greatly trusted by General Joffre and the Gov- 
ernment. I naturally did not ask his opinion on 
any matters connected with the War. We dis- 
cussed the Australians, the Canadians, the great 
growth of the British Army, and kindred 
matters. 

At another gathering of officers some one 
asked whether the French would not expect the 
British to draw off the Germans by making an at- 
tack in the West. "It is questionable," replied 
one young officer, "whether such an attack would 
not involve disproportionate losses that would 
weaken the Allies." The same officer pointed out 
that, although the capture of Verdun would cause 
great regret, owing to the historic name it bears, 
it would not, for many reasons, be more impor- 
tant than the pressing back of any other similar 
number of miles on the front. Forts being of 
little account since the introduction of the big 
German hammers, he believed that General Sar- 
rail had said that the question was not one merely 
of dismantling the forts, but of blowing them up. 



210 AT THE WAR 

As it is, whenever the Germans capture a piece 
of land where an old fort happens to be, they 
will use it as an advertisement. But though the 
French officers are not looking to us, so far as 
I could learn, for active co-operation now, they 
are most certainly urging that when our new 
armies and their officers are trained we shall aid 
them by bearing our full share of the tremendous 
military burden they are carrying. 

The present attack on the French at Verdun 
is by far the most violent incident of the whole 
Western War. As I write it is late. Yet the 
bombardment is continuing, and the massed guns 
of the Germans are of greater calibre than has 
ever been used in such numbers. The superb 
calm of the French people, the efficiency of their 
organisation, the equipment of their cheery sol- 
diery, convince one that the men in the German 
machine would never be able to compare with 
them even if France had not the help of Russia, 
the five British nations, Belgium, Serbia, Italy, 
and Japan. It is unsafe to prophesy about war, 
as it is to prophesy about any other human af- 
fair, but this prediction one can make, and with 
certainty: that, whatever may be the result of 
the attack on the Verdun sector, every such ef- 
fort will result in adding many more thousands 
of corpses to those now lying in the valley of the 
Meuse, the numbers of which are being so care- 
fully concealed from the neutral world and the 



BEFORE VERDUN 211 

Germans themselves; and could neutrals see the 
kind of men whom the Germans do not scruple 
to use as soldiers their faith in Teutonic physical 
efficiency would receive a shock. 

Unluckily a pygmy behind a machine-gun is 
the equal of a giant. "What a pity your High- 
landers cannot meet these fellows in fair fight," 
said a French officer, as we reviewed a gang of 
prisoners. "The war would be over in a month." 
Personal contact with the miserable creatures 
who form the bulk of the German prisoners here 
is needed to convince an observer that such speci- 
mens of humanity can really have belonged to the 
German Army, and especially to a corps d' elite 
such as the 3rd, or Berlin, Army Corps. One ill- 
favoured youth hailing from Charlottenburg 
was barely 5 ft. 4in. high. Narrow-chested and 
peak-faced, he had the quick-wittedness of the 
urban recruit, but seemed far better fitted for his 
stool as a railway clerk than for the life of the 
trenches or for the ordeal of attack. Yet he had 
been taken at the end of 19 14 and sent to Flan- 
ders after six weeks' training, "educated" in 
trench-making for another month, than left to 
fend for himself and his comrades as a full- 
fledged Prussian eaglet. Like the bulk of the 
other prisoners belonging to other units, he had 
been withdrawn at the beginning of February 
from the Flanders front and sent to the neigh- 
bourhood of Verdun. He had known that there 



212 AT THE WAR 

was to be an attack, but until the order was ac- 
tually given neither he nor his comrades had re- 
ceived any hint of the precise purpose of the 
operation in which he was to be employed. 

Of one thing he and his fellows were heartily 
glad — to be taken away from the neighbourhood 
of the ''frightful" English and nearer to the 
kindly French. From all the reports which these 
men had received from their families during the 
last two months it appears that, in the words of 
one of them, "there reigns in Germany consider- 
able misery." All agreed that butter is unob- 
tainable, meat scarce (except in Alsace and parts 
of Pomerania), fat almost unknown. In most 
respects the food of the Army was tolerable, 
though not good or abundant. All declared that 
enthusiasm for the war had long since evapo- 
rated, though, as two of the more intelligent 
among them maintained, the German Army does 
not expect to be beaten, even if it no longer hopes 
to win. The chief longing of these men, as of 
their families, was for peace. 

The only good thing about these prisoners was 
their foot-gear. Their stout Bliicher boots were 
an object-lesson in the necessity of tightening 
certain features of our blockade and of adding a 
shortage of leather to the other deficiencies of the 
military and civil supply that are wearing down 
the German power of resistance. 

The true moral of the fighting to the north and 



BEFORE VERDUN 213 

east of Verdun is that the French, with a com- 
paratively small loss of ground, have warded off 
the attack of armies outnumbering them origi- 
nally by three to one. The German order of bat- 
tle on February 21 running eastwards from a 
point north of Varennes comprised on the ex- 
treme German right the 7th Reserve Corps, con- 
sisting of the 2nd Landwehr Division, the nth 
Reserve Division, and the 12th Reserve Division 
in the order named. During the fighting the nth 
Reserve Division is understood to have been re- 
lieved by the 22nd Reserve Division. Immedi- 
ately before the French line to the north-east of 
Verdun lay the 14th Reserve Division, with the 
7th Reserve Corps and the nth Bavarian Re- 
serve Division in support. These troops were on 
the right of what may be called the central force. 
Next to them was ranged the i8th Corps, the 
3rd Corps, the 15th Corps, and the Bavarian Er- 
satz Division in the order named, while south of 
Etain in the Woevre were ranged the 5 th Land- 
wehr Division, the 5th Army Corps, and the 3rd 
Bavarian Corps opposite Fresnes. 

By March 3 the Germans brought up the 1 13th 
Reserve Division in place of the spent units of 
the 3rd Army Corps, while the forces farther 
to the east and south were relieved or replaced 
by other units whose composition is not yet ex- 
actly known. 

There are no means of estimating how long 



214 AT THE WAR 

the battle of Verdun may still rage. To say that 
the French are confident of holding their own is 
not enough. They feel that they have the meas- 
ure of the enemy, both in men and materiel. 
They know that, given the necessary concentra- 
tion of heavy artillery, either side can drive the 
other from the first, or even from the second, 
positions, but that, unless the bombardment be 
followed up by infantry attacks of far greater 
vigour and persistence than any yet executed by 
the enemy, and unless the advance of the ene- 
my's artillery can keep pace with that of the 
infantry, the defending force will have time to 
make its third position practically impregnable. 

This is what has happened round Verdun. To 
the north and the north-east the first and second 
French lines were obliterated by an intense bom- 
bardment executed with guns of which the small- 
est were 105 mm., while the bulk were 210 mm. 
Large numbers of still heavier weapons up to 380 
mm. were freely used both in direct and in cur- 
tain fire. The weakness of the French forces 
holding the first and second lines accounts for 
the insignificance of the losses. Ground having 
thus been gained by the Germans to the north 
the French evacuated voluntarily the marshy 
ground east of the Verdun Ridges in the Woevre. 

The efifect of this action was threefold. It gave 
the French a strong defensive line on high 
ground, it prevented the formation of a danger- 



BEFORE VERDUN 215 

ous salient, and, apparently, it induced the Ger- 
mans to believe that their enemy was demoralised. 
Verdun is unlikely to be taken. Nothing jus- 
tifies a belief that the spirit and the stamina of 
the German forces are equal to the task of dis- 
lodging the French from their present formi- 
dable positions. 



THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 



THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 

Hi^adquarTe:rs of thk Be:lgian Army, 
Friday, March 17, 19 16. 

ThiJ little army that first arrested the rush of 
the Huns, the army that gave the Allies invalu- 
able breathing time, has been fighting longer than 
any of us. 

And it is not too much to say that the world's 
debt to Belgium has increased steadily since those 
hectic hours at Liege and Antwerp. The United 
States recognises its share in the work for civi- 
lisation by helping to feed the six millions of Bel- 
gians who are holding themselves so proudly 
while under the immediate domination of the 
tyrant. 

I had been with the Belgian Army soon after 
its long series of rearguard actions. It was then 
suffering from its great losses ; it was war weary, 
and it needed sleep and equipment. It had never 
lost heart or discipline. 

To-day it is the same army, but renewed. It 
has no great reserves to fall back upon, because 
the greater part of the nation is imprisoned. 
The wise men who administer it under the affec- 

219 



220 AT THE WAR 

tionate care of the King have, therefore, while 
getting into the ranks every possible available 
Belgian of military age, wherever he may be, de- 
voted themselves to the work of refitting and 
reorganising. The result is a perfect little army. 

Belgium is above all things fortunate in having 
a man. Kor beyond question one of the most vital 
of all the forces among the Allies is the Belgian 
Minister of War, Baron de Broqueville. For 
years before the outbreak of hostilities The 
Times had consistently called attention to de 
Broqueville's work and warnings. Except for 
those warnings Belgium would not have been 
in a position to offer the resistance it did to 
the Monster. De Broqueville is fifty-three and 
looks younger, though I notice the war has 
not left him unmarked since our last meeting. 
He is as alive as our Mr. Hughes, and it is re- 
markable that the views of the two men are 
alike. 

When I arrived at the house, within hearing 
of the guns, in which he spends alternate weeks 
between his visits to Havre, his secretary, the 
young Comte de Lichtervelde, had just finished 
reading to him one of Mr. Hughes's speeches. 
Monsieur de Lichtervelde, who knows England 
and the United States very well indeed, makes 
it his duty, as part of his secretarial work, to 
keep his chief well informed in world happen- 



THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 2S1 

ings. A courier each afternoon brings that same 
morning's Times. 

M. de Broqueville, who is as good-looking and 
well-groomed as he is alert, discussed the whole 
of the European and world situation incisively, 
frankly, and with a vigour and directness most 
refreshing to one whose misfortune it is to dwell 
within reach of the miasmic exhalations of the 
Upas Tree of Westminster. Some of our Ger- 
manophils twit Mr. Hughes with not being an 
expert on Germany. That charge cannot be 
brought against M. de Broqueville, whose coun- 
try knows, alas! too much of peaceful penetra- 
tion by commerce, capture of public opinion by 
subsidisation, and political, educational, artistic, 
and musical espionage. And so Mr. Hughes 
from Australia and the Baron de Broqueville 
from Brussels agree exactly as to the Huns. 
Like all Belgians of the ruling class, de Broque- 
ville is deeply grateful for British help, and is 
a warm admirer of the steady improvement in 

our Army. But I had not come to to 

discuss politics or to receive compliments. My 
desire was to revisit the soldiers with whom I 
had sojourned after their bloodily-contested re- 
treat against overwhelming forces. 

So, after gaining a great deal of extremely 
interesting information which I do not propose 
to present to the Germans, and enquiring after 
Mme. de Broqueville, who has remained cou- 



S22 AT THE WAR 

rageotisly at Brussels while her husband takes 
charge of his King's Government, I made my 
way by road to the enchanting little sixteenth- 
century scene where the brain of the Belgian 
Army is installed. 

Army headquarters are very much the same 
everywhere, save as to their situation. General 
Wielemans, who is Chief of Staff of his Majesty 
the King, the Commander-in-Chief, has very 
capable advisers in General Biebuyck, Aide-de- 
Camp to the King, and General D'Orjo, M. de 
Broqueville's Chef de Cabinet. General Wiele- 
mans, who speaks English and knows England 
well, asked me what I should particularly like 
to see, and arranged that the next day I should 
be taken along the Belgian trenches by Colonel 
Detail, under Chief of Staff. 

Though the shortest of the lines held by the 
Allies, the Belgian line is, in proportion to the 
free Belgian population, much the longest. It 
occupies a difficult and extremely uncomfortable 
position, for in no part of the war zone is the 
mud of Flanders blacker and deeper than in 
the Belgian trenches. 

I told General Wielemans that what the Eng- 
lish public would be interested to learn some- 
thing about is the very efficient Belgian artillery 
which has rendered so excellent an account of 
itself. It is no secret that Belgian preparations 
were not such as Baron de Broqueville had for 



THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 

years urged, but in the matter of artillery the 
gallant little army had acquired great proficiency, 
doubtless partly by reason of its association with 
those masters of the gun, the French. That the 
Belgians are well equipped with great cannon, 
big howitzers, 75's, and machine-guns, and that 
every gun has a plentiful supply of shells of 
every description is abundantly well known to 
Hans and Fritz on the other side of the inunda- 
tions and elsewhere along the Belgian front. 

I asked General Wielemans if he would allow 
me to take a quiet and unobtrusive seat in one 
of his batteries during such time as an artillery 
duel was timed to rage vigorously. He readily 
assented, and I was taken by M. de Lichtervelde 
and Colonel Detail to Lieutenant General de 
Ceunink, who, with Major-General Orth, after 
some consultation, found me at a considerable 
distance a particularly lively young artillery of- 
ficer, whose four "pets," as he called them in 
English, were timed to perform that afternoon. 

Our way lay through ruined sixteenth-century 
Flemish villages, where the churches in almost 
every case had been shelled to fragments and 
where also in almost every case the carved 
wooden Christ (often as not of the fervent Span- 
ish type dating from Spanish times) remained, as 
by some miracle, untouched. 

I was long loth to believe that the Germans 
selected churches as artillery objectives, but per- 



224 AT THE WAR 

sonal examination of more than loo shelled 
towns proves it. And with the churches usually 
goes the churchyard; open coffins, shrouded 
corpses, and grinning skulls show that the mod- 
ern Prussian takes as much pleasure in revealing 
the secrets of the grave as he does in the de- 
struction of his enemy's wife and child. 

In one of the small ruined towns we visited, 
three hundred of the population still remained, 
and will not leave. An old, old man was bend- 
ing over a little garden, a lusty young woman 
was scrubbing at a tub while her little son was 
playing with shell fragments. The whole dis- 
trict, every street and open place, was a series 
of gigantic irons de marmites (shell holes), filled 
with water, in one of which a couple of little 
people were sailing a paper boat. There were 
no guns or anything military whatever in the 
town, but it was being bombarded periodically 
by Germans, probably in reply to dexterous Brit- 
ish artillery work at Ypres. 

It is a thousand pities that expert kinemato- 
graph operators are not sent to these places 
to prove to the world that German warfare, espe- 
cially in these later days of the conflict, is at 
least as much directed against the civil popu- 
lation as against the military. French gunners 
score a success in Champagne, and, in reply, the 
Germans throw asphyxiating shells into Reims, 
and so on in all the theatres of war. 



THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 225 

I do not propose to give the least indication 
of the situation of the battery with which I 
spent some very interesting hours. The Huns 
have never found it, nor, indeed, any of the 
French or Belgian batteries I have entered. For 
the detective powers of the aeroplane observer 
have been countered by extraordinary ingenuity 
in concealment on the part of artillerymen. 

There was the usual dog attached to it, some 
sort of mongrel that always seems to like to be 
with men in dangerous places. By an ingenious 
arrangement of barbed wire a nice large cage 
of starlings, finches, and sparrows, who did not 
in the least mind the guns, had been arranged; 
they were hopping merrily and eating well. A 
spring garden with crocuses and primroses had 
been planted. 

The dug-outs had all sorts of amusing names ; 
one was called "The Virtuous Repose," and an- 
other, in English, "Home, Sweet Home." The 
captain in charge of the battery, who had been 
alongside and among the English in the early 
stages of the war and had picked up a good 
deal of English, which, like most Belgians, he 
liked to exercise, speedily explained the system 
on which he worked his 75's, for each of which 
he had a pet name. He showed me his map, with 
frequent aeroplane corrections in red ink, of 
the enemy's position in front of him. He dem- 
onstrated the extreme facility of the elevating 



226 AT THE WAR 

and deflecting apparatus of his four favourites. 
He had not yet received his instructions as to 
what was to be the programme of his day's 
work. They would come by telephone from cer- 
tain Headquarters. Meanwhile, I might like 
to go down into his *'wine cellar" and see the ex- 
cellent array of "bottles," as he called them. 

We bent low and went deep, deep into the earth, 
and his electric torch revealed a fine display of 
shells. Some had been made in England. There 
were several types of shells and several kinds 
of fuzes. "Very good bottles indeed, heinf" he 
said in broken English. 

We came above ground again and listened to 
the various forms of artillery that were to be 
heard around us. "Those," he said, asking me 
to listen to a continuous series of salvoes, "are 
your Englishmen. Plenty shells now." Miles 
away there was the deep roar of something big, 
reminding me of the voices of Verdun. "That," 
he remarked, "is Belgian howitzer." The men 
were smoking and waiting about, taking no no- 
tice whatever of the occasional burstings of Ger- 
man messages that threw up great clouds of 
mud. 

Suddenly there came the ring of the telephone 
bell, taking one for the moment quickly back to 
London, but carrying a very different message 
from that which one receives in one's office. 

Instantaneously the men sprang down to their 



THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 227 

guns, and then I saw the marvellous working of 
these 75's, whose sharp bang, bang I have heard 
at so many points at the front. A quick order 
was shouted as to the direction and elevation, 
there was a slight pause, the little chamber and 
its Rembrandt-like faces were lit up for a mo- 
ment as by the flame of a smithy, a roar came 
that was gentle after the earth-shaking at Ver- 
dun, and then silence till, kilometres away, we 
heard our shells bursting. 

The gunners were waiting to hear the tele- 
phone report from the observer. Within a few 
seconds it was received — "Too short." 

Another try. "Too far," came the verdict. 

At the third shot came the report, "A hit," and 
then was revealed to me the magic of the 75. 

The gun recoils so quickly that it can be 
stoked with shells and fired, in the hands of really 
trained gunners, with a speed most extraordinary 
to watch. 

I remember well the first time that I saw a 
cannon fired in war. I did so with reluctance, 
not wishing to participate even by observation in 
the sending forth of that which would destroy 
life, or wound. But the spectacle of these 
smashed towns and babies' graves in France and 
Belgium has removed any sentimental nonsense 
of that kind from my conception of war, and 
so, knowing that these Belgian gunners were 
helping to weary and destroy the moral of an 



228 AT THE WAR 

army that did not disdain to initiate gas poison- 
ing and the throwing of flame and even vitriol, 
I confess to enthusiastic rejoicing at this remark- 
able little organisation that is only one of hun- 
dreds the Belgians possess. 

A good artillery battle reminds one very much 
of a quick lawn- tennis volley, and in this matter 
of artillery reply the Latins certainly are speedier 
than the Huns. 

A signal presently brought the order to cease 
fire from this patricular battery, and immedi- 
ately afterwards a little further down the line 
other voices spoke. 

We made our way back through the mud to 
a distant highway, and then a long walk brought 
us to our motor, which was sheltered behind 
one of the few walls still remaining in that dis- 
trict. 

At a very pleasant and simple Headquarters 
repast, Verdun, the English Fleet, and the lat- 
est wireless were discussed, and then every one 
went about his business. Army Headquarters 
have settled down to the regulation and prompt 
routine of all efficient business organisations. 
The improved Belgian Army, as regards the 
higher command, efficiency, equipment, cavalry, 
infantry, artillery, and transport is, like our own, 
the creation of nearly nineteen months of war, 
and it is said that war is the best school for 
war. 



THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 229 

Nor are the medical arrangements of the Army 
neglected. Inspector-General Melis, who is well 
known in England, and is a hard-headed, prac- 
tical man, had to deal with almost insuperable 
difficulties when the Germans seized practically 
the whole of the Belgian Red Cross materiel in 
their advance. He has excellent hospitals at 
various points that need not be mentioned, lest 
they tempt Hun gunners unduly. There is one 
little English hospital which I must not forget 
— the Belgian Eield Hospital. Its windows rattle 
night and day with the vibration of the guns. 
Its career has been one of adventure, for it be- 
gan life at Antwerp in September, 1914. 

On the night I paid my respects the Belgian 
Field Hospital was quite full. I found an ex- 
cellent Scotch doctor and matron, and a num- 
ber of devoted nurses, who have been with it 
since the day it started travelling across Bel- 
gium, during the time it was shelled out of 
Furnes, where I had seen it before, and through- 
out all its vicissitudes. The whole establishment 
is ready, if necessary, at any moment to move 
again. 

Among the patients that day were a number 
who were desperately wounded by a very com- 
mon form of accident. Souvenir rings from the 
trenches are being sought for all over the world. 
They are made of aluminium obtained from the 



230 AT THE WAR 

German fuzes, and unexploded fuzes are the 
cause of numerous fatalities. 

In every ward of this hospital, in every Bel- 
gian dug-out, in every room I entered in the little 
part of Belgium that is now in Belgian hands, 
and on the table of the Minister of War and his 
General, are pictures of the heroic King and 
Queen, who are known by sight to every soldier 
in the army, and to whom the whole of this very 
efficient Belgian force is deeply devoted. 



WITH THE ITALIANS 



WITH THE ITALIANS 
Some: Te:i,i:grams from the: Various Fronts 

HEARING that an Italian offensive was about 
to commence, and having an invitation from His 
Majesty the King of Italy, the Italian Com- 
mander-in-Chief, and also from General Cadorna, 
his Chief of Staff, I hastened from the Battle of 
the Somme to the Italian Headquarters at Udine, 
and was able to arrive in time for the capture 
of the important keystone town of Gorizia. 

I spent some time with the Italian Army, and 
despatched telegrams almost daily to my news- 
papers, some of which are reproduced in this 
volume. 

I 

IN GORIZIA 

Gorizia, August lo. 

To have broken bread well inside enemy terri- 
tory is quite a new experience in the War. 

This afternoon I had an excellent Austrian 
meal at the Grosses Cafe in Gorizia. As re- 
cently as Tuesday this despatch would have been 

233 



234 AT THE WAR 

dated Gorizia, Austria. To-day, though pink 
and white Austrian shrapnel is still bursting fit- 
fully over the town, Gorizia is firmly Italian. 
The hoardings are covered with German ad- 
vertisements, German newspapers still hang in 
the racks outside the shops, but the brilliant 
green, white, and red Italian flag with the Cross 
of Savoy flutters from the windows of many of 
the beautiful villas along the Corso Francesco 
Giuseppe. The inhabitants wish that the shell- 
ing would cease, but the pro-Italians wave 
friendly signals to the serried masses of grey- 
clad infantry with blue steel helmets who are 
sweeping through the delightful city on their 
way to the conquest of the Carso. 

It will please believers in the mounted arm to 
know that cavalry are already taking part in the 
pursuit, and are expectant of great things in the 
near future. With the cavalry is the cavalry on 
wheels — grey armoured motor-cars — which the 
Austrians after their bitter experience of the last 
few days are known to dread. 

We entered what was till lately Austrian ter- 
ritory at Cormons; and, after pushing our way 
for an hour and a half through clouds of dust 
raised by the outgoing transport of men, great 
guns, ammunition, and food, and the incoming 
motors of the Croce Rossa Italiana and the Brit- 
ish Red Cross, we arrived in sight of the serpen- 
tine Isonzo, the bluest of rivers. Here we left 



WITH THE ITALIANS 235 

our car in hiding and walked, sometimes under 
cover, and sometimes in the open to the lower 
bridge which the Italian engineers with wonder- 
ful promptness have already repaired. On our 
way we examined the Italian and Austrian 
trenches, which for many long months had been 
within speaking distance of each other. So ac- 
curate was the Italian artillery fire that, while 
their own trenches — neatly lined with steel lat- 
tice work new to me — were intact, those of the 
enemy— which appear to be lined with a kind 
of basket work, such as is often seen in Tirol 
— were almost as badly smashed as the German 
trenches on the Somme. 

On our left rose Monte Sabotino, the key to 
the whole formidable bridgehead of Gorizia. 
When on Sunday last it was taken by the 
Italians, its loss, combined with the terrific bom- 
bardment that has so sadly marred the charm of 
Gorizia, caused the Austrians to flee. 

There is a joyousness in accompanying a trium- 
phant army in its progress, and a strange sense 
of pleasure in being in the enemy's own city, 
which he thought impregnable. Even in this 
part of Austria Hun Kultur has left its familiar 
mark on architectural style, a mark as familiar 
as his advertisements, familiar as his beer — in- 
deed, a soldier-waiter at the cafe suggested wag- 
gishly that the suddenness of the Austrian re- 
treat was due to a scarcity of beer occasioned by 



236 AT THE WAR 

the hot weather. How unexpected was the re- 
treat may be gathered from the fact that among 
the booty were many mules laden with hot rolls 
for the "high-well-born" breakfast of the Aus- 
trian Hauptquartier. 

The good folk of Gorizia were plucking up 
courage to come out of the cellars ^ as we made 
our way to present our respects to the General 
Commanding the victorious troops. The re- 
markable strategy by which General Cadorna de- 
luded the Austrians and their German masters 
into believing that he was about to attack in the 
Trentino some hundreds of miles to the west is 
probably now well known in England, and how 
he moved night after night several army corps 
to the appointed spot, getting the last battery 
into position half an hour before the moment 
fixed for the opening bombardment. 

No better General for the final blow on Gorizia 
could have been selected by General Cadorna. I 
offered him congratulations in the name of the 
Allies and of The Times, and though worn out 
by continuous fighting since Sunday last, and 
unshaven and without sleep, he was prompt and 
alert. He said: — "I hope to do better. Our 
front line is now several miles beyond Gorizia, 
and the cavalry is getting to work." I asked 
him whether the enemy had another strong line 

^ There were Italians among them who had lain coft- 
cealed for months with yard-long beards and hair. 



WITH THE ITALIANS 237 

this side of Trieste; and, though his military pru- 
dence precluded a positive reply, his gestures re- 
vealed hopefulness. 

This General's fighting record dates from the 
war of 1870, when, 18 years of age, he volun- 
teered to fight for France under Bourbaki, and 
was promoted officer for valour in the field. At 
the age of 20 he entered the military service of 
his own country. His political services have 
been not less distinguished. For some time he 
belonged to the Italian Parliament, urging in 
season and out of season the need for military 
reform. 

As we prepared to leave this very handsome 
tree-embowered city, for the capture of which 
all Italy is now beflagged, we were detained some 
time by acute shelling of the Isonzo bridge — the 
last desperate attention of the retreating Aus- 
trians. It was gratifying to notice that among 
the first visitors to Gorizia was Mr. George Ma- 
caulay Trevelyan, in charge of the British Red 
Cross Service. His chief anxiety was to ascer- 
tain whether he would be able to get the British 
ambulances across the damaged Isonzo bridge. 



II 

HOW GORIZIA WAS TAKEN 

ITAI.IAN He^adquarte^rs, AuQUSt II. 

The; more the Italian offensive on the Isonzo 
is studied, the greater does its significance ap- 
pear, and the clearer is manifest the ability of 
the strategic conception on which it was based. 

Every great commander takes accomit of the 
mental disposition of the enemy. General Ca- 
dorna carefully traded upon the Austrian belief 
that the Italian efforts would be concentrated 
upon the Trentino front, and neglected no means 
of humouring the enemy's fancy. The Austrians 
also imagined that if any action were undertaken 
on the Isonzo it would be nearer the sea — from 
Monfalcone. In this respect also General Ca- 
dorna humoured them. Then, when the hour 
struck for the offensive against the Gorizia 
bridgehead, the enemy found that Italian artil- 
lery in overwhelming strength and masses of men 
had been swiftly transferred from the Trentino 
by road and rail ready to wrest from the Haps- 
burg forces the positions on which they had 

238 



WITH THE ITALIANS 239 

worked for as many years as the Germans on the 
Somme had worked for months. 

The credit for the brilliant conception nat- 
urally belongs to General Cadorna, but the glory 
of the achievement falls to the Duke of Aosta's 
Third Army. Quivering with impatience as the 
bombardment reduced the enemy observation 
posts and rocky redoubts on Monte Sabotino the 
Duke of Aosta's soldiers swarmed from the saps 
secretly driven through the rock up to within 
a few yards of the Austrian lines and over- 
whelmed the foe in a mad, victorious rush. In 
a few hours Sabotino Hill, the key to Gorizia and 
the bridgehead, and the scene of the hardest 
and bloodiest fighting on this part of the front 
since tlie war began, was firmly in Italian hands. 

Across the Isonzo and further south the long 
ridge and summits of San Michele were simul- 
taneously carried. Details of the fighting in this 
sector of the battlefield are still lacking, but the 
rapidity of the progress may be judged from the 
reported occupation of Doberdo yesterday. 

Nevertheless the stout Austrian resistance on 
Hill 240, the highest summit of the Podgora 
ridge on the west bank of the river, delayed for 
some hours the actual assault on Gorizia. The 
enemy already knew that Gorizia was doomed. 
During the night from Monday to Tuesday or- 
ders were given for the evacuation of the city, 
though the massive stone viaduct that spans the 



240 AT THE WAR 

Isonzo just north of the iron bridge we crossed 
on Thursday was only blown up at 5.30 on Tues- 
day morning. 

The resistance of Hill 240 being at length over- 
come, the Italian infantry, debouching from Pod- 
gora, swarmed forward to the river with inimi- 
table dash. With water up to their necks, carry- 
ing their rifles above their heads and shouting 
patriotic songs, they forded the broad stream 
and carried the eastern bank. The enemy shrap- 
nel, which churned the water into foam, failed 
to check their progress. Men wounded in the 
water insisted on being helped to gain the east- 
ern bank, saying, "Then they'll not send us back." 

By this time the bulk of the Austrian forces 
were in full retreat, but the rearguard offered 
a stiff resistance. The Italian guns skilfully cov- 
ered the advance, sweeping the approaches to 
the city and keeping down the enemy fire. The 
most pleasant surprise for the Italians was the 
comparative feebleness of the Austrian fire from 
Monte Santo, some distance north-east. Indeed, 
the question constantly arose. Where were the 
Austrian guns? Had they been hurriedly re- 
moved or knocked out by the Italian bombard- 
ment — or sent to Galicia or the Trentino? Be 
the explanation what it may, the fact remains 
that the unexpectedness of the Italian offensive 
took the Austrians at great disadvantage in re- 
gard to artillery, as in other respects. Had 



WITH THE ITALIANS 241 

Monte Santo been heavily held with big guns 
the Italian crossing of the Isonzo and the occu- 
pation of Gorizia would have been far more dif- 
ficult and costly than they actually were. 

Meanwhile the Italian batteries deluged Gori- 
zia with shrapnel. Some hundreds of civilians 
inevitably suffered from the iron hail, while the 
walls of many villas along the spacious Corso 
Francesco Giuseppe are severely pock-marked. 
The pavements are littered with broken glass 
and tiles. The advancing Italian troops found 
hot work in clearing the outskirts and some 
houses, but as soon as the task was accom- 
plished they swept on, and the tricolour was 
run up on the principal buildings. Then masses 
of troops pushed over the Isonzo iron bridge, 
which the engineers smartly repaired under 
heavy fire. Battery after battery of field artil- 
lery galloped across, some losing a few horses 
on the way, but none faltering. Cyclists, Ca- 
rabinieri, and cavalry followed rapidly. 

When I visited Gorizia yesterday the streets 
were full of cavalry. I should not be surprised 
to hear that before nightfall on Thursday a 
strong cavalry cordon had been thrown around 
the whole region from Gorizia southwards to 
Doberdo and Monfalcone. 

The Austrian positions on the western bank 
of the Isonzo presented many points of excep- 
tional strength. Under the embankment which 



242 AT THE WAR 

carries the road to the iron bridge runs a long 
stone-hned tunnel connected on both sides with 
deep communication trenches. In this tunnel 
600 Austrians were caught as they were wait- 
ing with machine-guns to take the advancing 
Italians in the rear. 

The railway arch on the other side was also 
strongly held. Rents and gashes in its corru- 
gated iron roof bear witness to the accuracy of 
the Italian fire, while twisted iron girders and 
the railings of the iron bridge over the river 
prove that here the Austrian big guns had the 
range to a nicety. 

The road and the battlefield on either side of 
the river are littered with traces of the struggle. 
Austrian and Italian entrenching tools, leather 
cartridge pouches, hand grenades, aerial torpe- 
does, trench mortars, broken rifles, knapsacks, 
and rolled blankets litter the ground. 

In the heat and dust of an Italian August day 
the weight of the accoutrements which the 
Italian infantryman carries into battle is apt to 
become intolerable. When one has trudged, 
lightly clad, a few miles along roads ankle-deep 
in fine dust under the afternoon sun one under- 
stands the puissant charm of the neat water-tank 
carts that are never far in the rear of the Italian 
advance. 



Ill 

THE CARSO BATTLES 

A Thirsty D^s^rt 

IsoNzo Front, August 13. 

Op' the ferocious fighting on the ItaHan front 
little is understood in England. If the figures 
of the wounded carried by the British Red Cross 
ambulances alone could be published, they 
would, perhaps, open the eyes of the public. Let 
me select one battle scene, one in which the crum- 
bling of Austria is visible even without field- 
glasses — on the birdless, waterless Carso. It 
is certainly the thirstiest battlefield this side of 
Suez. It can only be compared to a gigantic 
Shap fell or Devonshire tor. It is not unlike the 
Arizona desert without the alkali. 

As another battlefield, look at the Calvaria 
position, on the Podgora hill outside Gorizia on 
the west bank of the Isonzo river. Take the 
steepest wooded hillside you know ; put the Aus- 
trians, deeply and cunningly entrenched, on the 
top; and realise that the capture of that one 
hill has cost Italy 15 months' bloodshed. The 
price was great, though the thousand deeds of 

243 



244 AT THE WAR 

heroism which resulted in the sudden flight of 
the Austrians should thrill generations of Ital- 
ians yet unborn. 

These are but two of the battlefields of Italy 
which are barely known to the outside world. 
They deserve to be known. 

These sturdy Piedmontese, Lombards, Sicili- 
ans, Neapolitans, have all fought with equal 
valour. Owing to the preoccupation of the world 
with the rest of the war and the absence of news- 
paper correspondents, the impression of the 
Italian forces received throughout the world has 
been that of a dilettante army. For the same 
reasons that at first made the progress of the 
British Army slow, Italy is only now beginning 
to put forth something like her real strength. 
She has much strength in reserve. A most dis- 
tinguished Italian officer remarked: — "What we 
have done now has been good, useful work which 
we could have done a year ago had we had guns 
and ammunition." 

Yet there should be no mistake about the 
strength of the Austrian defensive organisations. 
They are not of the same nature as those of the 
Germans, because the terrain here is entirely dif- 
ferent. For example, to make an impression on 
the rocky soil of the Car so pneumatic drills and 
dynamite were essential. The Austrian front 
line has been blasted and drilled out of the lime- 
stone rock with machinery similar to that used in 



WITH THE ITALIANS 245 

making the St. Gothard and Simplon tunnels. 
The snipers' lookouts are armoured with iron 
plates an inch thick cemented into the rock. The 
making of dug-outs must have required the la- 
bour by night and day with drill and dynamite of 
hordes of Croats, Magyars, Slovaks, Swabians, 
Rumanes, and other races of the Austro-Hun- 
garian Monarchy. 

I went out to see 13,000 of these stout fellows 
just captured in this offensive. They reminded 
me exactly of the raw, lusty labourers who used 
to land from emigrant ships at Quebec before 
the war and were drafted out to make the great 
transcontinental railways of Canada. Many of 
them have spent some time in American rail- 
road building and speak English. Their of- 
ficers are very good imitations of the closely- 
shorn, square-headed, heel-clicking Prussians in 
long grey cloaks. Though not Prussians they 
fight well. 

The Austrians have had unlimited ammuni- 
tion, tons of which have been left behind on 
the battlefields. On the Carso their lines had 
been supplied with water pumped up from vari- 
ous points by oil engines. Food has been abun- 
dant — four square meals daily. They look 
shabby — all prisoners look shabby — but they 
have invariably excellent boots, characteristic of 
the Hun and his dupes. 

Viewed from the mountain vantage points the 



246 AT THE WAR 

30-mile battle is a beautiful and grandiose scene. 
The battle line now runs far beyond Gorizia 
— a town resembling Homburg or Baden Baden 
— which, when you get into it, is seen to be 
dominated by a fine Schloss fitfully shelled by 
the retreating Austrians with pink and white 
shrapnel. On the hillsides great shells are burst- 
ing and here and there a burning copse or vil- 
lage sends a tall column of smoke into the limpid 
air. The sound of guns firing from concealed 
positions reverberates from hill to hill on either 
side of the Isonzo valley, while great shells which 
the Italian soldiers call "tramcars" whiz through 
the sunshine like enormous invisible rockets. 

The whole line of battle is visibly moving for- 
wards. The Italian projectiles hourly burst a 
little farther eastwards. The enemy is not run- 
ning, but is clearly retreating. The capture of 
Oppacchiasella and Hill 121 on the Carso tells 
its own tale, and, though strong positions like 
Monte Santo and San Gabriele still resist to the 
northward, the Italian advance is steady. 
Steady also is the inflow of prisoners. Two thou- 
sand more were brought in yesterday. Where 
will the retreat end? Opinions differ, but the 
matter is emphatically not one for public dis- 
cussion. 

"It is difficult for me to express my feelings 
about what we have seen to-day," said a dis- 
tinguished young officer who accompanied us 



WITH THE ITALIANS 247 

and who was the first to enter Oppacchiasella on 
Friday. "Italy needs the self-confidence that 
comes of military achievement. Now she has 
it. It will broaden her shoulders and steady her 
national life in every way. When I think of 
the transformation these months of war have 
wrought in me, who am 30, how much greater 
must it be in all our young soldiers of 19 and 
20!" 

Italy has, indeed, done herself credit — that is, 
justice. I have described the Austrian defences. 
The Italian are no less perfect. Line after line 
of strongly built works, league upon league of 
splendid roads, motor transport service, food and 
water supply, all reveal her powers of organi- 
sation. 

We toiled yesterday under a burning sun along 
miles of the rugged Carso — the harsh German 
name "Karst" seems apter for this inhospitable, 
rock-strewn plateau, where lizards alone find 
life bearable — past where last week had been the 
Italian and Austrian first line positions. In one 
night the Italian engineers had hammered and 
hewn across the bare limestone a tolerable road 
which to-morrow will be smooth enough for 
motor vehicles. Warm food — the excellent 
Italian minestrone, a thick soup composed of 
meat, vegetables, rice, and macaroni — ^was be- 
ing brought up on mule back to the danger zone 
and carried thence by hand to the firing line. 



248 AT THE WAR 

One gruesome sight in the former No Man's 
Land between the first positions bore witness 
to the character of the cHmate. We came upon 
the remains of a human body in a kneeling 
posture absolutely mummified by the scorching 
heat amid the brambles, thistles, wild roses, and 
scraggy mountain ash, which form the only veg- 
etation in this desolate region. While collect- 
ing battle souvenirs for a boy friend at home 
I discovered that, during the hot hours of the 
day, metal objects can only be handled with dif- 
ficulty. 

A strange feature of the Carso are the deep, 
crater-like depressions called doline, filled with 
dark brown, peaty earth, every one of which 
forms a natural fort. The Austrian troops 
fortify them and build officers' shelters in their 
sides. One such group of shelters had been dev- 
astated by the Italian bombardment. The oc- 
cupants had fled, abandoning vast quantities of 
ammunition, entrenching tools, whole cases 
marked ''explosive cartridges," piles of rockets, 
a rich assortment of hand-grenades, lengths of 
water hose, rolls of wire, and other parapher- 
nalia of this uncanny war. A pestilential odour 
proved that not all the inhabitants of these bar- 
baric excavations had fled. Letters and relics 
also showed that ladies from Budapest had been 
not infrequent visitors. 

In nothing is the disorganisation of the Aus- 



WITH THE ITALIANS 249 

trian defence more clearly revealed than in the 
utter absence of aerial observation. During my 
whole visit to this front I have not seen an Aus- 
trian aeroplane or observation balloon. The 
Italian captive balloons float serenely in the still 
air, directing the fire of their own batteries, but 
the Austrians appear to be firing blindly. The 
Italian heavy batteries are consequently able to 
do their deadly work undisturbed. Their shells 
search position after position, bursting with 
marvellous accuracy on selected points miles 
ahead, and crowning every ridge with dark clouds 
of smoke. 

The enemy's bitterness of soul may be judged 
by his behaviour. At Doberdo Russian prisoners 
of war, who had been brought like so many of 
their comrades to make roads for the Austrians, 
were found hanged — possibly as revenge for the 
escape of other Russian prisoners who pluckily 
swam the Isonzo the other day and reached the 
Italian lines after hiding for four nights among 
the rocks. Italian wounded were found muti- 
lated. I have seen the terrible spiked maces 
habitually used by the Austrians to break the 
skulls of the wounded. Equally barbarous are 
the thongs with leaden balls attached to sticks, 
which the Austrians use to coerce laggards. A 
specimen of these thongs found on Friday was 
shown to me by an Italian commander of high 
rank. 



250 AT THE WAR 

The Austrians are inspired by fierce hatred 
of the Itahans, and their brutal conduct may well 
engender the fury of Italian comrades of vic- 
tims of such ferocity. But it is very difficult to 
arouse lasting resentment in the Italian 
soldatini. "You're a filthy dog," said one of 
them yesterday to a thirsty prisoner. "Here, 
have a pull at my water-bottle." 

Owing to the fact that so many Italian and 
Austrian soldiers have worked in the United 
States and Canada, it often happens that Eng- 
lish is the only language in which they can 
mutually converse. Yesterday I saw a small 
band of prisoners being brought in by Bersag- 
lieri, who answered my remarks upon the stout 
physical appearance of the prisoners by saying 
in good New York dialect, "They can holler all 
right. Mister," at which the prisoners grinned 
with evident understanding. 

On finding, through prisoners, that the news 
of the Franco-British successes on the Somme 
and the sweeping Russian advance had been 
kept from the Austrian rank and file, and that 
newspapers had long been withheld from the 
men in the Austrian trenches. General Cadorna, 
with his customary shrewd alertness, had mil- 
lions of little news sheets dropped from aero- 
planes among the enemy. The news sheets are 
printed in all the principal languages of the 
Hapsburg Monarchy. On the other hand, Gen- 



WITH THE ITALIANS 251 

eral Cadorna causes all ogod Italian or Allied 
news to be telephoned along the whole Italian 
front line, and, following the German example, 
he encourages the circulation of newspapers 
among the troops. 

Unfortunately the Italian public, while under- 
standing the immense value of our Fleet, has 
no idea of the superb British military organisa- 
tion or of the vast assemblage of British and 
Dominion troops in France. I am repeatedly 
asked if we have yet 500,000 men in France, and 
while great publicity is given to France and Rus- 
sia, I find the impression general among edu- 
cated classes here that our part in the war is 
considered to be progressing unduly slowly, ow- 
ing to inadequate supply of trained officers. Be- 
yond Sir Douglas Haig's official communiques 
and occasional second-hand accounts by Italian 
correspondents in London, little is known here 
outside high military and Royal quarters of the 
magnificent work done by our new Armies and 
those of the Dominions at Fricourt, Pozieres, 
and Longueval. 

In the highest Royal and military quarters 
interest, confidence, and admiration are warmly 
expressed, but unluckily Italian Parliamentary 
and business circles and the bulk of the Army 
know nothing of the meaning of our successes 
and sacrifices in the Somme offensive. Their 



252 AT THE WAR 

eyes are concentrated on Verdun and the Rus- 
sian fronts. 

Yet the importance of thorough mutual com- 
prehension here is manifest. The Isonzo is, so 
to speak, the western Balkan front. Blows struck 
here are felt in Sofia as well as in Vienna, 
and should encourage the Allies at Salonica as 
well as in Galicia. Co-ordination of Allied pub- 
lic opinion may be as important as co-ordination 
of military effort. It is essential to complete 
victory that each of the Allies should feel to- 
wards the others the trust and admiration which 
they all merit and which knowledge alone can 
engender and maintain. 



IV 

ON THE CADORE FRONT 

Th:^ "Wire: Ways"— A Motor Drive: 
IN Austria 

On th^ Cadore: Front, Augiist 15. 

On Sunday afternoon I witnessed on the 
Isonzo front a prolonged bombardment, at a dis- 
tance of 5,500 yards, of a rocky cavern in which 
an Austrian battery of mountain guns and a 
number of machine-guns were known to be con- 
cealed. Hour after hour 8 in. Howitzers planted 
their shells within a few yards of the same spot. 
It was bright and clear, and through a power- 
ful telescope we could pick out every individual 
pine tree in the neighbourhood of the cavern, 
and see great rock splinters being thrown in all 
directions at the moment of the explosion of the 
shell. 

This morning I am writing in brilliant sun- 
shine and several degrees of frost on the Cadore 
front. It is not usually realised that the Italian 
front is nearly 500 miles long. In the parched, 
stony wilderness of the Carso, which I have al- 

253 



^54 AT THE WAR 

ready described, the chief enemy of the fight- 
ing man is thirst. The chief enemy on the 
Cadore front is frost. These two facts should 
bring home some of the difficulties that the 
Italians have faced for 15 months. 

In discussing the peculiarities of the mountain 
fighting as contrasted with the fighting on the 
road to Trieste, his Majesty the King of Italy, 
who has a fine sense of words, and who has 
spoken English from childhood, said: — "Picture 
to yourself my men 9,000 ft. up in the clouds for 
seven months, in deep snow, so close to the Aus- 
trians that at some points the men can see their 
enemies' eyes through the observation holes. 
Imagine the difficulties of such a life with con- 
tinual sniping and bomb-throwing." 

King Victor Emmanuel's grim picture of war 
was in such strong contrast to the tropical fight- 
ing round Gorizia that I asked General Cadorna 
for permission to come and see the fighting in 
the clouds. The illustrated newspapers have 
from time to time published photographs of great 
cannon carried up into these Dolomite Alps, but 
I confess to having never realised what it means. 
It had never occurred to me to imagine what 
happens to the wounded men, or to the dead. 
How do supplies and ammunition reach these 
lonely sentinels of our Allies? 

I have watched great steamers arrive at our 
British bases in France — the transport of their 



WITH THE ITALIANS 255 

freight by train and the wonderful motor serv- 
ice, and then on by light railways or horse 
vehicles. Here food for the men and food for 
the guns go first by giddy, zigzag roads, specially 
built by the Italians for this war. They are 
not mere tracks, but are as wide as the Grand 
Corniche that runs between Nice and Mentone, 
or the Hog's Back between Guildford and Farn- 
ham. When these have reached their utmost 
possible height there comes a whole series of 
*Vire ways," as the Italian soldiers call them. 
Steel cables slung from hill to hill, from ridge 
to ridge, span yawning depths and reach almost 
vertically into the clouds. Up these cables go 
guns and food, as well as timber for the huts, 
in which the men live ; and material for entrench- 
ments. Down these come the wounded. The 
first sensation of a transit down these seemingly 
fragile tight-ropes is much more curious than 
the first trip in a submarine or aeroplane, and 
tries even the strongest nerves. 

Man is not only fighting man at these heights, 
but both Italians and Austrians have been fight- 
ing Nature in some of her fiercest aspects. The 
gales and snowstorms are excelled in horror by 
avalanches. Quite lately the melting snow re- 
vealed the frozen bodies, looking horribly life- 
like, of a whole platoon which had been swept 
away nearly a year ago. 

While there have been heavy casualties on 



256 AT THE WAR 

both sides from sniping-, bombing, mountain- and 
machine-guns, and heavy artillery, there has 
been little sickness among the Italians. The 
men know that doctors' visits are practically im- 
possible. Therefore they follow the advice of 
their officers. King Victor Emmanuel, whose 
life has been passed almost entirely among the 
troops since the beginning of the war, told me, 
however, that despite the greatest care, occa- 
sional casualties from frost-bite are impossible 
to void. Yet the men have all the comforts that 
it is humanly possible to obtain. The cloud 
fighters are extremely well fed. Huts are pro- 
vided, fitted with stoves similar to those used 
in Arctic expeditions. 

I do not know how many kinds of artillery are 
used in these Alps. In addition to heavy guns 
there are guns carried on mules and guns partly 
carried by mountain artillerymen — ^huge fellows 
whose weight-carrying capacity entirely puts 
into the shade that of the Constantinople hamels, 
or porters. When Queen Margherita arrived at 
Gressoney some years ago, four Alpine gunners 
presented arms with the guns of a battery. They 
are cheery fellows, not a little proud of their 
strength, and with backs like bulls. 

Higher yet than the mountain fighting line 
stand the vedettes, sentinels and outposts whose 
work resembles that of expert Alpine climbers. 
They carry portable telephones, with which they 



WITH THE ITALIANS 257 

can communicate with their platoon. The pla- 
toon in turn telephones to the local commander. 
When thinking of our own brave men who have 
held the trenches in French inlanders for these 
two years and who now, with Dominion and 
Oversea troops, are alongside the French 
slowly forcing back the Germans on the Somme, 
it is only fair that we should realise that, but 
for the work of these Italians in weakening Ger- 
many's chief ally in the mountains, on the lower 
ground near Gorizia, in Gorizia itself, and in 
the Carso desert, our advance would not have 
been possible. 

Proof of the Austrian expectation of swarm- 
ing down on to the rich Venetian plain is afiforded 
by documents recently captured giving the names 
of the officers appointed as governors of such im- 
portant Italian cities as Vicenza, 

Motoring through that luscious plain yester- 
day, with its vineyards, mulberry trees, vast ex- 
panses of ripe maize, its fat pastures and abun- 
dant orchards, one could but rejoice at the cha- 
grin of these dupes of the German Kaiser. They 
had feasted their eyes from afar on this beau- 
tiful scene. They had been told in an Order of 
the Day that the good wine and fair women of 
Italy awaited them. Many, indeed, arrived on 
the plain — as prisoners — and are now quarrelling 
among themselves as to who brought disaster 
upon them. It is "those verdammte Magyars," 



258 AT THE WAR 

say the Austrians. It is "those Austrian swine," 
say the Magyars. 

I do not know the tale of prisoners taken by 
the Italians, but I do know that almost daily at 
one point or another I have found "cages" of 
them, all well-fed and not altogether displeased 
at being at last in the promised land. 

Motoring in Austria in war time is most pleas- 
ing. Italy holds a good deal more of Austria 
than seems to be understood. No fewer than 
500 Austrian communes are already under Ital- 
ian administration. Austrian names have been 
removed from the streets, Hamburg-Amerika 
advertisements have been painted over, and Odol 
and Sanatogen are seen no more. The black and 
yellow frontier posts and the Tabaktrafiken have 
been done away with, and only the comfortable 
Austrian Gasthauser remain, though they are 
not overcrowded as formerly with German and 
Austrian tourists. If one could get permission, 
which I confess is difficult, I know nothing more 
agreeable than a visit to the Italian part of Aus- 
tria in war time. 

Yesterday I was in Cortina, where doubtless 
many readers of these lines have spent happy 
summer holidays. The Austrian bombardment 
seems to have ceased. Several reasons are 
given. One is that the Austrians thought it un- 
desirable to go on killing the relatives of 800 
Cortina soldiers in their ranks. Another is that 



WITH THE ITALIANS 259 

the large hotels are chiefly owned by Austrians 
and are heavily mortgaged to Viennese banks. 
My own belief is that the cessation of the bom- 
bardment, which has wholly or partially smashed 
many hotels and buildings, is due to the slow 
crumbling of the Austrian offensive power to 
which I have referred. 



V 

FIGHTING IN THE DOLOMITES 
Tri:nche:s 10,000 Fe:e:t Up 

Cador:^ Front, August 16. 

In reading the steady flow of good news that 
has followed General Cadorna's great coup de 
main, it is important to bear in mind the several 
factors which have rendered it possible. First 
among them were the preparation and organisa- 
tion of the Italian Army, which to-day is as 
well equipped, trained, and organised as any of 
the Allied Armies. At the outset General Ca- 
dorna's troops lacked many things. The wars in 
Abyssinia and Libya had, indeed, taught them 
the value of good equipment, but they had to 
learn the requirements of modern European war- 
fare in the hard school of actual war. 

Italy is now throwing herself into the land 
war as heartily as is the British Empire. Many 
of her initial difficulties were not unlike our 
own. Others are peculiar to her geographical 
environment. The recent Italian successes on 
the Carso would have been impossible had not 

260 



WITH THE ITALIANS 261 

the mountain armies on the Trentino and the 
Cadore held a very large proportion of the total 
enemy forces, which at one moment numbered 
at least 800,000 men. Austria is compelled to 
keep many strong divisions on these mountain 
fronts lest numerical weakness should expose 
her to the cutting of some of her most important 
strategic railways, notably the Puster Valley 
railway, which runs eastward from the Tirolese 
fortress of Franzensfeste along the Drave Val- 
ley, and is even now exposed at Toblach to the 
long-range fire of the Italian heavy guns on this 
Cadore front. She is therefore unable seriously 
to reinforce either the armies which are retreat- 
ing before the Russians or those which are fall- 
ing back on the waterpipes in the Carso desert. 
It should always be remembered that the Aus- 
trians have waterpipes, which they destroy as 
they retreat, whereas the Italians are handi- 
capped by having to construct them as they ad- 
vance, just as we are doing on the Somme. 

General Cadorna is intensely grateful to the 
heroes fallen in this strange, deadly guerilla war- 
fare on the mountain peaks. I saw yesterday one 
young officer with three medals for valour. In 
one division alone 40 such medals were recently 
distributed — a sure sign how General Cadorna, 
who is no sentimentalist, appreciates the gal- 
lantry of these fighters among the precipices and 
avalanches. 



262 AT THE WAR 

On reaching the headquarters of this division 
at dawn I found a batch of prisoners captured 
in a midnight battle near a Dolomite summit 
drawn up in line. In contradistinction to the 
prisoners taken in the Gorizia battle, they were 
ragged and unkempt tramps. The only decent 
thing about them were their boots, rifle, and the 
stout mountain staff which each carried. The 
captors, with soldierly generosity, had shared 
their own soup with them — food such as, the 
prisoners said, they had not tasted for six 
months. One had a lump of Austrian military 
bread. It is before me as I write. Dark col- 
oured — not the healthy colour of rye bread — 
hard to chew, sodden to touch, evil of smell, it 
seems barely possible that it can sustain the 
strength of human beings in the coming terrible 
winter conditions of this mountain warfare. 

As the sun rose the great peaks of the 
Dolomites stood out like pink pearls, set here 
and there in a soft white vapour. Coming 
through a Canadian-looking pine forest, with 
log-house barracks, kitchens, and canteens be- 
neath one such peak, I was reminded of Dante's 
lines: — ''Gazing above, I saw her shoulders 
clothed already with the planet's rays." But 
poetic memories soon faded before a sniper's bul- 
let from a very near Austrian outlook. 

At one spot the Austrian and Italian barbed 
wire entanglements were clearly visible through 



WITH THE ITALIANS 263 

glasses on a neighbouring summit at a height 
of over 10,000 feet. A few yards below in an 
open cavern protected by an overhanging rock 
the little grey tents of Italy's soldiers were 
plainly seen. It may be a consolation to our men 
on the Somme and in Flanders to know that 
the war is being waged here in conditions equally 
as dangerous as theirs. 

The Italians have driven back the Austrians 
foot by foot up the almost vertical Dolomite 
rock with mountain, field, and heavy guns, and 
especially in hand-to-hand and bomb fighting. 
Sniping never ceases by day, but the actual bat- 
tles are almost invariably fought by night. 

The only day fighting is when, as in the fa- 
mous capture of Col di Lana and more recently 
at Castelletto, the whole or part of a mountain 
top has to be blown off, because it is impossible 
to turn or carry it by direct assault. Tunnels, 
sometimes 800 yards long, are drilled by ma- 
chinery through the solid rock beneath the Aus- 
trian strongholds, which presently disappear un- 
der the smashing influence of 30 or 40 tons of 
dynamite. Then the Alpini swarm over the 
debris and capture or kill the enemy survivors 
and rejoice in a well-earned triumph. 

One needs to have scaled a mountain side to 
an Italian gun emplacement or look-out post to 
gauge fully the nature of this warfare. Imag- 
ine a catacomb, hewn through the hard rock, 



264 AT THE WAR 

with a central hall and galleries leading to a gun 
position 7,000 feet up. Reckon that each gun 
emplacement represents three months' constant 
labour with drill, hammer, and mine. Every 
requirement, as well as food and water, must 
be carried up by men at night or under fire by 
day. Every soldier employed at these heights 
needs another soldier to bring him food and 
drink, unless, as happens in some places, the de- 
voted wives of the Alpini act nightly under or- 
ganised rules as porters for their husbands. 

The food supply is most efficiently organised. 
A young London Italian private, speaking Eng- 
lish perfectly, whom I met by chance, told me, 
and I have since verified the information, that 
the men holding this long line of the Alps re- 
ceived special food, particularly during the seven 
months' winter. Besides the excellent soup 
which forms the staple diet of the Italian as of 
the French soldiers, the men receive a daily ra- 
tion of two pounds of bread, half a pound of 
meat, half a pint of red wine, macaroni of vari- 
ous kinds, rice, cheese, dried and fresh fruit, 
chocolate, and, thrice weekly, small quantities 
of Cognac and Marsala. 

Members of the Alpine Club know that in the 
high Dolomites water is in summer often as 
precious as on the Carso. Snow serves this pur- 
pose in winter. Three months' reserve supplies 
of oil fuel, food, alcohol, and medicine must be 



WITH THE ITALIANS 

stored in the catacomb mountain positions, lest, 
as happened to an officer whom I met, the gar- 
risons should be cut off by snow for weeks and 
months at a time. I have already pointed out 
that the Italians have driven the Austrians in 
most cases by sheer hard fighting to the very 
tops of the peaks. Unless the positions thus won 
were firmly held during the winter they might 
rapidly be lost at the melting of the snows. 
They form an essential portion of the great Al- 
lied siege of Germany. Sir Douglas Haig has 
asserted that the war is a young man's game. 
Certainly, as far as concerns the fighting in the 
high Alps, men above 30 are of very little use. 

The experience of the Italian front brings into 
prominence one little understood aspect of the 
Italian character — its patience, and its industry 
as of ants. Paziensa is one of the commonest 
Italian words. Here it is exemplified both by 
faith and works. 

Its faith is wonderful. It believes whole- 
heartedly in the Allied cause. The men display 
the keenest admiration for the British Army. 
They are hungry for news of its doings. They 
are proud to be its Allies. I repeat that the 
Italian newspapers, which I scan daily for news 
from home, tell them little beyond Sir Douglas 
Haig's communiques. Yet the Italian Press pos- 
sesses some of the best popular writers of our 
time. The men in the lonely catacombs at the 



^66 AT THE WAR 

top of the Dolomites or struggling across the 
thirsty Carso vvaouM be consoled to know that 
their hardships and perils are fully shared by 
their British brothers in arms, who side by side 
with the French are fighting in the trenches, on 
the Somme, and in Flanders. 

The work of our Navy is entirely understood 
in Italy, but I repeat with emphasis that the 
superb work of our Army needs to be made 
known. 



VI 

THE GATE TO ITALY BARRED 
Roads ve^rsus Big Guns 

Trkntino Front, August 17. 

Autumn leaves were swirling at Asolo, a 
charming spot reminiscent of the Brownings, as 
we passed through yesterday on the way to this 
front, the scene of so much ghastly fighting dur- 
ing the Austrian offensive and its repulse. 

The Kaiser has sown his dragon's teeth well. 
All through this beautiful province of Venetia 
are soldiers drilling, soldiers marching, infantry, 
Alpini, cavalry, motor transport, ammunition 
columns, big guns, and field guns. Women, who 
look as though they had walked out of Titian's 
pictures, are gathering the third harvest. Old 
men and boys — a hundred and twenty thousand 
of them on this part of the front alone — are 
making and repairing the wonderful roads that 
lead to victory. Fig, apple, peach, and olive 
trees, vines, maize, noble villas, tall campanili, 
15th century fagades — one has the impression of 
travelling through whole picture galleries of 

267 



268 AT THE WAR 

great Venetian masters. The heat in the Plain 
is terrific. 

Climbing by the new war roads to an altitude 
of 500 ft., we came upon a front not unlike that 
of the Somme, with the difference that the 
ground is covered by a vast amount of rock and 
stone, even in the woods were then hostile armies 
facing each other. Crawling, in order not to 
draw the enemy artillery, to the edge of one 
of these woods, which is almost as utterly de- 
stroyed as Mametz, we looked across an appar- 
ently peaceful upland valley, difficult to associate 
with war unless examined with glasses, which 
reveal ruined houses, villages, and churches. 

Here the Italians recently repulsed 360,000 
Austrians equipped with 26 batteries of 12-inch 
guns. The fighting in this region presents, as 
it does on every front, its own particular dif- 
ficulties. Aeroplane observation is both difficult 
and dangerous, owing to the presence of vast 
scattered rocks, with little landing space. 
Trenches must here, as in the Cadore and Carso, 
be drilled by machinery and blasted. The Aus- 
trians are extremely well provided with petrol- 
driven machine drills. With these they also 
excavate deep caverns for hiding the guns. One 
lately captured was unusually light and strong, 
with a new type of Mercedes engine. 

What I may call the Prisoner Puzzle is ac- 
centuated by the fact that the prisoners recently 



WITH THE ITALIANS S69 

taken here are of remarkably fine physique, un- 
like those I saw yesterday. They are mostly 
Austrian-Germans, Poles, and Ruthenes. 

The effect of high explosive shells here is 
unusually terrible. Splinters from the rocks and 
stones seriously increase the efficacy of the 
projectile. A young Italian, who at the begin- 
ning of the war joined the French Army as a 
volunteer and was wounded at Verdun, recov- 
ered and has since fought here, said : — "At Ver- 
dun the big shell is a big shell; among these 
rocks it is equal to lo big shells." Fortunately, 
the same applies to the Italian shells fired against 
the Austrians, who have their own tale of woe 
to tell. 

The various sectors of the Trentino front have 
been described more frequently and adequately 
than any other part of the Italian line. I will 
not repeat those descriptions, but seek to convey 
an idea of the problem imposed upon his soldiers 
by General Cadorna when the great Austrian 12- 
inch guns suddenly began last May. Against 
the concentration of the Austrian artillery mon- 
sters and masses of infantry the Italians were 
for the moment powerless. Though holding well 
on both flanks, in the centre the Italians were 
overwhelmed and their bases of supply disor- 
ganised. Could the foe be stopped before reach- 
ing the Plain? Already his shells were bursting 
along the southernmost brow of the Sette 



270 AT THE WAR 

Comuni plateau. Asiago and Arsiero were 
taken. Schio and Vicenza seemed within grasp. 
The problem resolved itself into one of time. A 
few hours might turn the scale. 

The full story of the rapid concentration of 
Italian forces, the organisation of fresh bases 
of supply, including water, of which there is 
none on the Asiago plateau, and particularly the 
problem of the conversion of mountain mule- 
tracks overnight into splendid motor roads can- 
not yet be told. When told it will form one of 
the most thrilling chapters of the war. It was 
roads versus big guns. Roads won. In face of 
the strengthening of the Italian counter-pressure 
the Austrians hesitated to bring forward their 
heavy batteries. Hesitation proved fatal to their 
plans. The completion of the roads enabled Gen- 
eral Cadorna to hold them, to baffle them, until 
the Russian offensive prevented the Austrians 
from making good their severe losses, and re- 
lieved the pressure on the Italians. The only 
door into Italy was slammed in the enemy's face. 
Now it is bolted and barred. I saw the bars 
yesterday. They are stout. 

The Italian commander who now holds the gate 
does not under-estimate the enemy. He is a 
keen, hard, experienced soldier, with a splendid 
staff. He has no illusions as to the effort re- 
quired, but knows that the foe will be beaten. 
"We may knock fragments off the Austrian mass 



WITH THE ITALIANS 271 

here and there," he said, "but we must go on 
hammering until we and others smash the whole 
block of Hapsburg concrete to atoms." 

On my way back from the outer edge of the 
wood, well within the fire zone, I visited one of 
the Italian surgical mobile hospitals with an op- 
erating theatre that can be folded and carried by 
motor. It is used only for urgent stomach and 
head wounds that cannot bear delay or removal. 
A portable X-ray apparatus, a motor water- 
wagon carrying 500 gallons, four nurses, four 
surgeons, physicians, and orderlies complete the 
equipment. During the last two months 240 ur- 
gent operations have been performed. The hos- 
pital has 200 beds. It was given by the city of 
Milan and works under the Italian Red Cross. 

I have visited several other hospitals. All are 
in every respect modern, well staffed, and well 
equipped. The complete absence of flies is a re- 
markable feature of the Italian hospitals. I wish 
to call attention to the splendid work done by 
the British Red Cross hospitals near Cormons, 
to which are attached 24 ambulances. This and 
other ambulance sections are highly spoken of 
by the Italians, who regard the British Red Cross 
activity as a pleasing manifestation of Allied 
sympathy. 

Lord Monson is in charge and Sir Courtauld 
Thomson is now on a visit of inspection and is 
highly satisfied. Much good work has also been 



272 AT THE WAR 

done by the Fourth Section of the British Red 
Cross, which has a travelling X-ray car under 
the management of two English ladies, Countess 
Helen Gleichen and Mrs. Hollings. Owing to 
hard work during the battle of Gorizia one car 
has been put out of action, but I suggest the 
provision of another car specially constructed for 
mountain climbing, such as is made by the Ital- 
ian Fiat Company. The value of the work of the 
Fourth Section can be gathered by the fact that 
as many as 60 urgent cases have been radio- 
graphed, often under fire, in a single day. All 
the Red Cross work here presents unusual diffi- 
culties, owing to the heat and the lack of water.^ 

What is evident here is that the whole of in- 
dustrial Italy is being mobilised for war, as is in- 
dustrial Britain, and that the Italians are as much 
in earnest as are the British. 

On this, as on other parts of the front, the hor- 
rible conduct of the Austrians and Hungarians 
in using explosive bullets and iron-spiked blud- 
geons for killing the wounded has intensified 
the war feeling. Austrians, like Germans, make 
reprisals for defeats in the field by acts of cruelty 
and vandalism. Thus, as a reply to the defeat at 
Gorizia, the Austrians attempted to destroy St. 
Mark's at Venice. The enemy here is symbolised 
by Francis Joseph, whose portrait is often found 
roughly but cleverly sketched on the walls or 
^ The car was provided. 



WITH THE ITALIANS 273 

hanged in paper effigy on the lamps. He is known 
to the Italians, not as a venerable old man borne 
down by family sorrows, but as shrewd, hard, 
imperious, and impervious to all family bereave- 
ments. 

In leaving the Italian Armies, I desire to point 
out that accredited visitors are allowed to make 
any enquiry they choose and see everything they 
desire, and that the censorship is extremely light 
and strictly military. General Cadorna's view 
is that if anything is wrong it should be made 
known, so that it may speedily be put right. Per- 
sonally, I have been allowed every kind of free- 
dom. 

The only regret I have felt during a rapid and 
incomplete survey of the reawakening of the old 
martial spirit of Italy concerns the absence of 
propaganda in regard to the part that the British 
Empire is playing. It is only by the reciprocal 
knowledge of the achievement of each Ally that 
we shall get the fullest effort and enthusiasm 
from all. Those to whom I have given informa- 
tion privately as to the real number of our fight- 
ing men in France and elsewhere, of our output 
of shells and big guns, and of the successive cap- 
turing of the German colonial possessions are as- 
tounded. Parliamentary figures giving percent- 
ages carry no weight. 

I have been greatly helped in my pleasant task 
of recording a little of Italy's efforts by the kind- 



274 AT THE WAR 

ness of his Majesty King Victor Emmanuel, who 
is the Commander-in-Chief of the Italian armies, 
their Excellencies Generals Cadorna and Porro, 
Colonel Clericetti, and Captain Pirelli, and many 
other officers. 

Brigadier-General Delme-Radcliffe, head of 
the British Military Mission at Italian Headquar- 
ters, whose acquaintance with military Italy is 
probably unique and who seems able to dispense 
with sleep and is at his desk or in the field i8 
hours daily, provided me with the most efficient 
assistance and with information without which 
my work could not have been done, nor my most 
interesting visit arranged. 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 



THE GERMANS IN SWITZERLAND 

Zurich, Switze^rland. 

On leaving Italy I spent some days in Switzer- 
land en route for Spain, and was able to gather a 
good deal of miscellaneous information not with- 
out value. 

At night, Zurich, the first large neutral city in 
which I have been since the beginning of the war, 
is as bright as London was in July, 19 14. Rome, 
too, is bright, but over the Italian capital there 
is the indefinable atmosphere of war. 

In coming up through the Swiss-Italian lakes, 
we were at once among German tourists. At Lu- 
gano we saw figures familiar enough before the 
war, the stout, elderly German husband, followed 
at a respectful distance by his wife in her atro- 
cious Reformkleid. It was like going back years 
in one's life. In the train were Germans who 
talked loudly at us, and stared in the German way. 
The dining-car was filled with the usual German 
advertisements; rather amusingly some of them 
read to-day— the Hamburg-Amerika Linie with 

277 



278 AT THE WAR 

an illuminated picture of one of Herr Ballin's 
ocean monsters on its way to New York! 

It was near midnight when, we reached Ziirich. 
One remembers only the German voices, the elec- 
tric brightness of the streets, and the familiar 
rushing of the river. But it felt like Germany. 
Next morning, as we woke after delightful sleep 
induced by much journeying, the impression was 
for a moment that of a nightmare. Was it Ger- 
many, or was it not? On the floor, where it had 
been disrespectfully thrown over night, was the 
big eiderdown Federdecke. At my right hand 
on the wall was a prominent notice in large Ger- 
man type: — 

Die Zimmerpreise werden erhoht wenn 
keine der Hauptmahlseiten im Hotel genom- 
men wird, auch wenn der Preis vorher fest- 
gesetst. 

The waiter who brings the coffee speaks Ger- 
man only. 

Looking down into the sunny street at seven in 
the morning, we see a German town alive and 
busy, new, spick and span, like most German cit- 
ies. The Stddtische Strassenbahnen are packed 
with business men. School children are pouring 
through the streets and across the squares. There 
are the little girls with spectacles, double pigtails 
and knapsacks; big boys with spectacles, socks, 
and bare legs ; students with queer caps. 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 279 

Zurich is efficient. It is obviously well man- 
aged. There are almost as many "Achtung" and 
"Verboten" signs as in Hanover itself. It is so 
efficient that the little people are dragged out of 
their beds and sent to school at seven in the morn- 
ing — an hour when other little people in a less 
over-organised country are prattling and bathing 
as children should. At night they are still about 
at a very late hour. 

All English people have a strange sensation 
when first walking through a German neutral 
town in war time. Little but German is heard. 
The old familiar "Delikatessen" and "Bier vom 
Fass" notices intensify the feeling. This part of 
German Switzerland, though by no means hostile 
towards individual Britons or, indeed, towards 
the Empire, is completely German. In Ziirich the 
English traveller finds himself cheek by jowl with 
our chief enemy, for the Reichsdeutsch popula- 
tion of Ziirich is large. These "Imperial Ger- 
mans" are not, as a rule, offensive, and are con- 
siderably more civil to the English than they were 
before the war. 

The attitude of the German-Swiss was, natu- 
rally, anti-Ally at first, but it is becoming less and 
less hostile, and, in some ways, positively appre- 
ciative. These same good people of Ziirich, who 
strike the British visitor as being so German, re- 
cently besieged the railway station to welcome 
the passing British prisoners on their way to hos- 



280 AT THE WAR 

pitable internment. At some places barriers were 
erected to keep back the crowds who assembled in 
thousands merely to see the trains pass in the 
middle of the night, and to cheer the newcomers. 
At Zurich the police were powerless, and the en- 
thusiasm for the wounded British was delirious. 
These manifestations of Swiss good-heartedness 
have quite obliterated from the minds of British 
residents the memory of the rough handling to 
which some were subjected at the beginning of 
the war. Even those who, like The Times Corre- 
spondent, were arrested and kept in custody for 
various periods warmly recognise the friendli- 
ness of the Swiss people. 

The German-Swiss, I think, are puzzled about 
the war, and especially about Verdun. On the 
bookstalls you find side by side with more modest 
collections of The Times and of the Continental 
Edition of the Daily Mail, suspicious great piles 
of the Frankfurter Zeitung, the Vossische Zei- 
tung, the Neue Freie Presse, and of all the chief 
German and Austrian newspapers. 

These same German and Austrian journals 
and their German-Swiss contemporaries gave 
great prominence to the Kaiser's famous Feb- 
ruary despatch, in which he stated that his brave 
Brandenburgers had stormed the "fortress of 
Douaumont," and suggested that Douaumont 
was a real fortress commanding the ruined little 
city on the Meuse. 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 281 

As I pointed out in a message telegraphed to 
The Times from Verdun early in March, and re- 
printed in this volume, Douaumont is a fort only 
in name. Six months have now elapsed, and the 
German-Swiss see that all the military might of 
their kinsmen has been without avail. The 
French-Swiss newspapers, in good Fleet-street 
style, are "rubbing it in." They reprint the Feb- 
ruary headlines of the German newspapers and 
passages from an eminent German military critic 
who wrote : — 

Verdun is at its last gasp. Even as I write 
our brave troops are probably quartered in 
its houses. 

The only reply from Germany is the monotonous 
and outworn suggestion that the reduction of 
Verdun is taking its normal course. 

It should be borne in mind that the business 
connexions and family ties between Germany and 
German Switzerland are nearly as close as those 
between England and Scotland. Yet some of the 
German-Swiss newspapers are fair and give both 
sides a hearing. This is the more remarkable, 
since German propaganda by bribed newspaper, 
kinematograph, advertisement, private letter, 
business threat and bribe never ceases. Through 
her hosts of secret agents Germany hears when 
this or that citizen of German Switzerland has 



282 AT THE WAR 

expressed unorthodox views. Within a few 
hours the culprit receives a private letter care- 
fully controverting his opinions. 

German methods of working upon neutrals 
have often been analysed, but I think the most 
effective of them are still news-twisting and ra- 
pidity of publication. In the train between Zii- 
rich and Berne one bull-necked Hun of the com- 
mercial traveller type read, too loudly to be po- 
lite, a German report of the most recent North 
Sea "scrap," not a word about which had arrived 
from London. As before, the idea of our losses 
was allowed to remain in the German, Austrian, 
and neutral mind long enough to become embed- 
ded there. 

Comparison with our belated Admiralty report 
next day showed that the German communique 
was an artful piece of lying, but the lie had a long 
start, as in the Jutland battle matter. 

Another object of the German propaganda is 
to give the impression that affairs in Germany 
are going on as usual. Throughout Switzerland 
the great German steamship advertisements ap- 
pear as though the Atlantic were still open. The 
Hamburg-Amerika offices in the various towns 
look as if nothing had changed. The Balkan-Zug 
(Balkan Express) has flaring advertisements 
and time-tables posted up on the walls of sta- 
tions showing its route "Berlin-Budapest-Sofia- 
Konstantinopel." I saw one of them purposely 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 283 

placed beside a modest announcement of the 
Great Western Railway "the route for England's 
most historic sites and Cathedral Cities." 

There are some faint efforts at British propa- 
ganda. They might be greatly improved upon 
and intensified. Our "man in the street" may ask 
why we should trouble at all about German Swit- 
zerland or Switzerland in general, but Downing- 
street, I imagine, has reason to know otherwise. 
Nor would Germany be putting in propaganda 
seven days a week unless she had certain objects 
in view. 

In French Switzerland our French Allies are 
rendering us great services. They have organ- 
ised at Geneva a series of lectures upon "The Ef- 
fort of the Allies" by eminent French writers and 
statesmen. The Germans have striven to under- 
mine Swiss belief in Allied cohesion. With true 
French insight, our friends saw that if France 
bore generous witness to what her Allies have 
done and are doing, her assurance would carry 
greater weight than any assurance which indi- 
vidual Allies could give on their own behalf. The 
result has been a series of manifestations of 
which the effect is not confined to French Swit- 
zerland. 

French Switzerland is more fervently and, as 
I gathered at a public meeting, more vociferously 
pro-Ally than are some of the Allied countries 
themselves. German Switzerland is sentimental- 



284 AT THE WAR 

ly pro-German, but, as I have said, is striving to 
be fair. But Switzerland as a whole is pro-Swiss 
''first, last, and all the time," as the Americans 
say. 

Of Italian Switzerland I saw little, but I gath- 
ered that notwithstanding some misapprehen- 
sions, there is a general feeling of relief at the 
knowledge that the completion of the defences on 
the Italian side of the frontier has diminished 
any temptation which Germany may have felt to 
violate Swiss neutrality in that direction. Swit- 
zerland is naturally afraid of Germany and 
knows her well enough to understand that no sen- 
timental consideration would protect Swiss neu- 
trality, did a definite military advantage seem 
obtainable. Every step taken by France or Italy 
to deprive the Germans in advance of such an ad- 
vantage, therefore, enhances the security of the 
Swiss. 

Au fond des choses, I believe it is the cham- 
pionship of the cause of little nations by England 
in the past and by the Allies in the present that 
has most affected the attitude of Switzerland. 
The war has chastened her and has caused her to 
realise her comparative helplessness. "You are 
becoming absolutely Germanised," I said to a 
young bank manager who was changing some 
money for me. "Not at all," he replied. "We 
admire Germany, but her rule would be too rigid 
for us free Republicans. We are grateful to 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 285 

England for her protection of small nations, but 
we fear Russia. We have not forgotten Russia's 
visit of a hundred years ago." 

His was a very different tone from that of a 
German, straight from Frankfurt, with the 
Frankfurter Zeitung in his hand, a member of 
the race which has made Frankfurt famous. He 
was an elderly man, and opened the conversation 
in fairly respectable English by asking if I came 
from England. He proceeded to show me that 
he knew nothing whatever about the war. 

I should have expected this attitude from an 
ordinary German, but here was a Jew, a member 
of one of the most intelligent races of the world, 
a race that has been given quick powers of in- 
sight, inference, and deduction. Yet he was con- 
vinced that Germany had been basely attacked, 
that the English Navy was paralysed, that Lon- 
don was almost in ruins, that England was on her 
last legs financially and on the eve of a social rev- 
olution, that Hindenburg was cunningly drawing 
Brusiloff and the Russians on to their doom. 

Nor was the man without knowledge of Eng- 
land. He had been there twice — in London once 
and once in the Isle of Wight. He was especially 
loud in his lamentations over our futile attempt 
"to starve the women and children in Germany," 
but had nothing to say when I pointed out how 
Bismarck had treated Paris in 1870. He was also 
particularly angry that the Swiss should be mak- 



286 AT THE WAR 

ing fuzes for our shells, and said that the Swiss 
were as bad as the Americans. I explained that 
neutral countries had often done this kind of 
thing and that the Swiss, by the way, were mak- 
ing aluminium for the German Zeppelins, in 
whose future potentialities the old gentleman had 
infinite belief. He was especially eloquent over 
the condition of German finance and the relative- 
ly good position of the mark in Switzerland. 

I asked him if he ever read the English com- 
muniques, which, by the way, seem to be very 
fully given in the German Press. He replied that 
he did, but they were all lies. Verdun, of course, 
was going all right. Germany, he admitted, was 
suffering from lack of several kinds of food and 
raw material. He confessed that he was glad of 
the opportunity of getting a few days in such a 
land of plenty as that in which he was travelling. 
He thought the war would last at least till Christ- 
mas, at which time France would have collapsed 
and England would be asking to be allowed to 
''go home," to use his own words. Germany 
would not be ungenerous. "I am not an annexa- 
tionist," he added. "It will be enough if we re- 
tain Antwerp and some control over the manu- 
facturing districts of France and Belgium, with 
freedom of the seas, and big compensation for ill- 
treatment of the German colonies, plus means to 
complete the direct route from Antwerp, Berlin, 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 287 

Constantinople, and Baghdad, with a port at the 
end of the Hne." 

The Swiss are better informed than this. They 
know more of the true position and hear con- 
stantly of the cross-currents in Germany. Swiss 
workmen have recently returned from Germany 
in considerable numbers. They prefer the lower 
wages and the full meals of Helvetia to the high 
pay and low diet of Prussia. They have heard 
of the peace feelers constantly thrown out, not 
only by the German Imperial Government, but by 
some of the Governments of the Federal States. 
But they have not, and cannot have, a clear idea 
of the determination that animates all the Allies, 
and their very neutrality clouds their perception 
of the full meaning of the war. 

How wide is the gulf that separates belliger- 
ent from neutral countries is revealed almost 
painfully to visitors by the presence of large num- 
bers of young men in the streets. In Rome there 
are still some, but they are going daily. In Paris 
there are none. Thus when one comes first to a 
neutral country the great space which youth oc- 
cupies in the social landscape is instantly re- 
vealed. The departure of our youth for camp and 
battlefield is part, a large part, of the price we 
are paying for our freedom; but it is a singular 
fact that, despite the presence of young men, the 
atmosphere of neutrality is depressing. 

When passports have been examined at the 



288 AT THE WAR 

French frontier stations, and the familiar light 
blue uniforms once more predominate, one will 
breathe again. In these great days the breath of 
war is the breath of life, and the spirit of sacri- 
fice is the spirit of regeneration. 



II 

OUR RELEASED PRISONERS 
Happy as SchooIvBOys 

Murre:n, Switzerland 

The topsy-turvydoms of war are many. 

Just after the Battle of the Marne I witnessed 
the curious spectacle of a number of slightly- 
wounded brawny Highlanders exchanging re- 
marks with the passers-by from the windows of 
one of the most exclusive hotels in the world, the 
Bristol, at the corner of the Place Vendome, in 
Paris, long the resort of Kings and others of 
high degree. 

To-day, here at Miirren, in the most beautiful 
spot in all Switzerland, I am watching two Brit- 
ish bluejackets looking through a telescope at a 
distant eyrie, in which a couple of young eaglets 
can be plainly seen, the great parent birds wheel- 
ing and swooping like a pair of more graceful 
aeroplanes. 

The bluejackets, with between four and five 
hundred officers and men of his Majesty's Army, 
are prisoners of war, interned here, and interned, 
I may say, in the very lap of luxury. 

Accompanied by Colonel Picot, ex-Military 
Attache to our Legation in Switzerland, we set 

289 



290 AT THE WAR 

out early this morning on one of the most delight- 
ful motor rides imaginable, through the Bernese 
Oberland, by Thun, its towering schloss and em- 
erald lake, to Lauterbrunnen. Tirol itself af- 
fords no greater delights to the eye. All is Ger- 
man, of course; the inns, Gasthauser zum Loe- 
wen, Adler, and the like, and the motor signs : — 
"Achtung!" and the very necessary "Achtet auf 
die Kinder" — for the roads swarm with flaxen- 
headed tots. 

Here and there are the unexpected contrast of 
French poilus, in their hleu d'horison, fishing, 
flirting, strolling in groups, or cycling, but gener- 
ally fishing, and with greater result than in the 
Seine or the lac in the Bois de Boulogne, for they 
hold up to us great trout, pike, and "omble cheva- 
lier" — the last a fish new to me. 

These are the French interned prisoners in 
Switzerland. Unlike our men, who are at pres- 
ent chiefly at two centres. Chateau d'Oex and 
Miirren, the French are scattered in little com- 
panies throughout the Oberland. There are one- 
eyed, one-legged, and one-armed men, but they 
have all escaped from the Horror. 

Presently we come to Interlaken, and soon at 
Lauterbrunnen we take the steep mountain rail- 
way up to this delectable assemblage of hotels 
and chalets, in which our soldiers, broken in the 
war, are being rapidly restored to health by the 
healing air and sunshine of these higher Alps. 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 291 

Colonel Neish received us at the little station, 
and in a few minutes we are in the midst of as 
great a war contrast as can be imagined. 

Almost every one knows Miirren, but for those 
who have not that pleasure I will say that it is on 
a little plateau, immediately facing what many 
people regard as the most beautiful mountain in 
Europe, the Jungf rau. Within view are the Wet- 
terhorn, the Eiger, the Monch. 

By an arrangement with the Swiss Govern- 
ment, who have behaved as kindly to our poor 
men as have the Swiss people themselves — which 
is saying a great deal — the soldiers who were 
taken at Mons and at Le Cateau, at Loos, and 
some even more recently, are housed in the very 
best mountain hotels and chalets in Switzerland. 
The men only arrived at Miirren last week, and 
have not yet settled down to freedom. Many of 
them still wear the strange look noticeable in 
those who have got out of Germany. Numbers 
can hardly yet realise that they are free, and 
more than one remarked that when he awoke in 
the morning in his comfortable bedroom, and 
gazed out upon the brilliant sunshine on the 
snowy expanses opposite, he feared it was but a 
dream. 

For the whole of the general arrangements w^e 
have to thank Colonel Hauser, the Swiss P.M.O. 
Miirren and its region is in charge of a young 
Swiss medical officer, Captain Llopart. Our pris- 



292 AT THE WAR 

oners, of course, are under Swiss discipline, and 
our ofBcers and non-commissioned officers only 
hold their rank by courtesy of the Swiss authori- 
ties. So far this extremely delicate arrangement 
has worked admirably. 

Colonel Neish, who looks and says he feels like 
a boy out of school, after his long imprisonment, 
escorted me at once to the Swiss officer in com- 
mand, and we then made an inspection of the 
village. Inasmuch as most of the hotels and cha- 
lets have been built for winter sports visitors 
from England, they are quite new. And if there 
be any more sumptuously housed privates in the 
British Army in any other part of the world, I 
should be greatly surprised. 

A man from hateful Wittenberg was lying in a 
deck-chair on the sunny verandah outside his 
bedroom, to which was attached the very latest 
type of private bathroom. There was a bowl of 
roses and edelweiss and a box of Woodbines by 
his side. He was getting stronger, he said, as 
he stood to attention and saluted Colonel Neish 
and Captain Llopart. By his bedside I noticed a 
photograph of the wife and children at home, and 
he had abundance of books and English news- 
papers. 

His surroundings are typical of all those at 
Miirren. Nothing can be too good for our sol- 
diers, and at Miirren, and also at Chateau d'Oex, 
of which I obtained full accounts from English 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 

visitors, the best that modern hotels-de-luxe can 
give is given them. Flowers, sleep, sunshine, and 
happiness are everywhere. 

The officers are housed separately, as are, of 
course, the non-commissioned officers. All the 
hotels are on the same scale of comfort, and there 
is therefore no difference of treatment. 

At Chateau d'Oex work is in full swing, and 
the little colony at Miirren is already settling 
down into some form of discipline. When they 
first arrived, such as were able to walk clambered 
up and down the rambling mountain paths, 
shouting and singing like children on a school 
treat. They could with difficulty bring them- 
selves to believe that they were free. Lately 
brothers in affliction, all were now enjoying the 
first taste of liberty, and liberty in the nearest 
approach to an earthly paradise that can be found 
in Europe. 

Organisation is steadily growing. Tailor sol- 
diers have started a tailor shop. There is a li- 
brary, in charge of a sergeant, and a barber's es- 
tablishment. All who are able are beginning to 
help in such matters as waiting, washing up, and 
domestic assistance generally. The meals are 
exactly the same as those served to summer and 
winter visitors at Swiss mountain resorts. For 
breakfast: coffee, rolls, and honey. A substan- 
tial mid-day dinner of the best : good Swiss soup, 
roast mutton, roast beef, plenty of vegetables and 



S94 AT THE WAR 

fruit, plain puddings and compotes. For sup- 
per: bread, cheese, jam, and everything in un- 
Hmited quantities. The men need it. Some are 
increasing in weight at a rate that seems almost 
incredible. All who are able to be out in the 
healing sunshine are getting sunburnt. There 
seems to be little desire for alcohol among them, 
but they can purchase, if they will, the light Swiss 
beer with which many of us have quenched our 
thirst in our holiday climbs. 

Happiness is contagious. One of the most 
pleasing moments in my recent very varied itiner- 
ary is this day among the prisoners of Miirren. 
Each has his own tale to tell of life in Germany, 
and each will remember as long as he lives. It 
is not the immediate policy of the British Gov- 
ernment to emphasise German cruelties, and so 
I will not repeat the innumerable stories I have 
heard. 

The particular sailormen at Miirren do not ap- 
pear to have been badly used in Germany. One 
young bluejacket from the Hebrides told me in 
his Highland accent that his life in Germany 
''might have been better and might have been 
worse." An engineer from the Appam, captured 
by the Moezve, said that the captain of the Moewe 
was a thorough sportsman and a gentleman, and 
that his treatment in Germany had been fair. It 
is not wise to generalise, but from the conversa- 
tions I have had with sailors at Miirren, it w'duld 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 295 

appear that, in their case, at any rate, different 
treatment was dealt out to sailors. 

I heard other good things about Germany, too. 
Among the many acts of self-sacrifice of the war 
is that of the distinguished Liverpool dental sur- 
geon, Mr. J. A. W. Woods, who has given up his 
practice and come out to Miirren to look after the 
prisoners' teeth. He told me that several of his pa- 
tients had had good dental attention in Germany, 
and that in some cases false teeth had been given 
them. Of other cases the less said the better. 

For games there is a bowling alley, and such 
officers as are able to play have put the lawn ten- 
nis courts in order. But at the present time most 
of them are more inclined to laze and read and 
get well. Many are veritable Rip Van Winkles. 
Entirely shut off from news in Germany, except 
such fragments as they received from more re- 
cently arrived prisoners, they even now know 
practically nothing of what has happened since 
they were captured, and when I asked if there 
was any kind of reading they would care to have, 
the invariable reply was that they wanted histo- 
ries of the war, especially those with illustrations. 
These I have arranged that they shall receive as 
speedily as possible. 

As our interned men recover health, the ques- 
tion of their employment in Switzerland will be- 
come pressing. The whole subject is indeed 
fraught with difficulties, which are being solved 



296 AT THE WAR 

as they arise, by the energy, knowledge, and tact 
of Colonel Picot, than whom a more suitable se- 
lection could not have been made. A British 
ofiicer of world-wide experience and, as I said, 
late Military Attache to our Legation, he under- 
stands the views of the Swiss and also those of 
our own men. The question is complicated by the 
fact that while so many of the Swiss factories are 
making munitions, it is forbidden, of course, that 
Bi-itish or German soldiers interned in Switzer- 
land should take part in such work. The Swiss 
Labour leaders, who naturally guard their own 
interests jealously, do not desire that the local la- 
bour market should be disttn-bed by what may 
prove to be an army of invading workers. The 
matter has already been dealt with in a special 
article in The Times, and I would merely say 
that at present the decision as to whether a man 
should or should not be allowed to enter a factory 
is decided by a local committee on which sit mas- 
ters and men. 

For the moment, I repeat, the great object is to 
get our prisoners well, and to that end Colonel 
Hauser and Colonel Picot v/ork untiringly. 

The Swiss peasants in this part of the country 
are well accustomed to English people. They 
have had summer incursions of our tourists for 
years, and the winter sports have lately taken us 
there in great numbers. In a way, our internes 
constitute a material boon to districts which have 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 297 

hitherto lived almost entirely on visitors. Our 
men are free with their money, and as many of 
the little shops are open, quite a trade is being 
done in lace, picture post-cards, and the usual 
souvenirs that tempt the shilling from the pocket. 

To help the men to get well, English, French, 
and Swiss visitors come to amuse them, and those 
officers and men who are fit enough are helping 
with concerts, theatricals, and dances. Colonel 
Neish has told me that much is due to Mr. Lunn, 
who, twice rejected for military service at home, 
is doing good work in bringing peace of mind 
and of body to the lately released captives. 

Up till now, at Miirren the novelty of the vary- 
ing aspect of the Alps is almost sufficient enter- 
tainment. Perhaps not half-a-dozen of the men 
have ever been in real mountains before, and 
they are much surprised when told of the great 
distances separating them from points which in 
this clear atmosphere seem but a few miles away. 
They spend much of their time peering through 
glasses and telescopes at the glaciers and peaks. 
The blood-red sunset effect on the Jungfrau, fa- 
mous throughout the world, has amazed them. 

The officers are hoping, when they get well 
enough, to bag a chamois or two. The eyrie of 
the eagles to which I have referred is as great a 
pleasure to the local mountaineers as to our men, 
for they say that eagles long ago disappeared 
from this part of Switzerland. They look upon 



298 AT THE WAR 

their return as a lucky omen. It is attributed by 
some among them to the Italian-Austrian bom- 
bardment of the Dolomites, but I am not learned 
in eagle lore, and merely give this statement for 
what it is worth. 

Has the Miirren rose a thorn? For some of 
the men it has. Some 17 per cent, of them are 
married. The wives of some of the interned 
officers have already come out to stay with their 
husbands. The French soldiers have their wives 
with them. It is too much to expect that the 
Canadians, of whom there are a number, should 
be able to transport their wives from the other 
side of the Atlantic. But the words — "I want to 
look upon my wife's face again" — very sadly and 
earnestly spoken by one of the Old Army, one 
of the heroes of Mons, were echoed in every hotel 
and chalet I inspected.^ 

The cost of bringing out the wives on a visit is 
but £12 each. Dare I suggest that, if Mr. Lloyd 
George and the Treasury do not see their way to 
a very trifling precedent, the British Red Cross 
Society should satisfy this earnest wish of those 
who, in the national cause, have been through the 
hell of the trenches and the bottomless pit of the 
German prison camps? 

^ Charitable people at home at once provided the 
needed funds, and at the time of writing parties of wives 
are being escorted to Switzerland by British Red Cross 
Society representatives. 



Ill 

FOOD FOR OUR MEN IN GERMANY 

[The fine work described in this chapter has 
now been partly superseded by Sir Starr 
Jameson's great organisation. I retain my de- 
scription of it in justice to those who did such 
great service for our prisoners during many 
long months.] 

Much that I heard at Miirren induced me to 
make a few enquiries on the fringe of the great 
question of the lot of our prisoners now languish- 
ing in the hands of the enemy. It is an admit- 
tedly difficult subject which has not yet been thor- 
oughly grasped and dealt with by the Govern- 
ment, even after more than two years of war. 
But from the prisoners' point of view one aspect 
of the problem is simple enough. What they want 
and appreciate more than anything else in their 
life of captivity is Bread. 

Both in The Times and in the World's Work 
my colleague of The Times, Gerald Campbell, has 
given many interesting particulars of the steps 
taken to meet this need by the Bfitish Section of 

299 



300 AT THE WAR 

the Bureau de Secours aux Prisonniers de Guerre, 
an admirable organisation established at Berne 
by Lady Grant Duff, the gifted wife of the (then) 
British Minister. The importance of the work 
and the call for its further development are, how- 
ever, alike so great that it seems to me a matter 
of real national interest to return to it once again. 

The question of remittances of clothes, bread 
and other foods, and money is in so many hands 
at home that while it is more than possible that 
certain of our friendless prisoners in Germany 
get nothing, others, as I gather from statements 
made to me by released men at Miirren, get so 
much that they sell gifts, exchange them, or oth- 
erwise dispose of them to their guardians. 

Bread is sent in large quantities direct from 
England. The released men with whom I con- 
versed prefer the bread baked at Berne under the 
watchful eye of the president of the Bureau, her 
honorary secretary, an American gentleman, Mr. 
P. Grand d'Hauteville ; and Mr. and Mrs. Jebb 
Scott, honorary managers of the actual Bread 
Depot of this vast development. 

The Berne bread reaches Germany more 
quickly and arrives in a better state than that 
from England. In appearance it resembles good 
French pain de menage. It keeps, according to 
one of my informants, in wholesome condition 
for at least three weeks. I personally partook of 
it, both new and old. One Tommy criticised it as 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 301 

being too full of holes — "like Gruyere cheese," he 
said — but it is this very aeration that maintains 
its sweetness. Our soldiers in Germany call it 
"Burn" bread, this being their pronunciation of 
Berne. Most of them will remember with grati- 
tude the name of the Swiss capital for the rest of 
their lives. 

Owing to the fact that private donors are some- 
times sending bread and sometimes forgetting to 
send it, and that there are numbers of excellent 
organisations at work in England apparently in 
ignorance of each other's operations, there is a 
certain amount of overlapping. There would be 
much more were it not for the practical and busi- 
ness-like system of the Berne Bureau, the ener- 
gies of which are mainly devoted to checking and 
rechecking the various lists as they arrive from 
England. 

The entire staff, which commenced rather more 
than a year ago with two people, now numbers 
1 60 workers, paid or voluntary. For our prison- 
ers in Bulgaria and Turkey, who are also dealt 
with by the Bureau staff — which includes our able 
Military Attache, Lieutenant-Colonel W. F. G. 
Wyndham, M.V.O., Mr. R. J. A. Clarke, and Mr. 
L. Buchman, late Consul-General at Munich — 
special biscuits are baked, resembling a species of 
rusk or Zwieback. 

There being no surplus of flour in Switzerland 
the prisoners' bread is made from a weekly sup- 



302 AT THE WAR 

ply of fifty tons, which by courtesy of the Swiss 
Government the Bureau is allowed to import from 
Marseilles. In this matter the Swiss have again 
behaved well. The Post Office, which carries the 
parcels, letters and post-cards, charges nothing 
for the service, nor do the railways for the car- 
riage of the flour and the loaves and other parcels 
which go to Frankfort. The German Govern- 
ment also carries these parcels free, a concession 
which is perhaps not to be wondered at since our 
national generosity relieves them of a great re- 
sponsibility. 

The chain of operations is as follows : — First, 
regimental committees or members of the public 
in all parts of the Empire send cheques or postal 
orders to the secretary of the organisation, ad- 
dressed to 50, Thunstrasse, Berne. The donors 
should send the names of the prisoners, with their 
regimental numbers, rank, and regiment, and the 
name of the camp or hospital in Germany, Bul- 
garia, or Turkey in which they are interned. 
Money-orders are a source of trouble to the or- 
ganisation, and it is especially requested that only 
cheques or postal-orders should be sent. Once 
the money has been received, for each sum of 4s., 
4 lb. of bread are forwarded weekly for a month, 
strongly and neatly packed in ventilated card- 
board "cartons." The bread reaches the prisoner 
sometimes within two or three days, and it rarely 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 303 

takes more than six days. A receipt post-card is 
enclosed in each parcel, and an advice post-card 
informing the prisoner that the bread has been 
despatched and giving, if desired, the name of the 
person from whom it comes, is posted separately. 
From the replies received it is calculated that 
ninety-eight per cent, of the bread arrives safely 
and in good condition. At the present moment 
about 25,000 parcels of bread and other comforts 
of life are sent from Berne weekly to nearly 20,- 
000 prisoners. 

Personally, from things I have heard, I should 
be inclined to send help specially to "friendless" 
prisoners in Germany — men whose names are not 
included in any private or regimental list. Any 
one who wishes to provide for prisoners of this 
class — there is a wide choice of British, Canadi- 
ans, Australians, or Indians — is requested by the 
Berne people to apply to one of the regimental 
committees at home; in all cases the Bureau has 
found that it is more satisfactory to deal with 
these committees than with individuals. 

How great is the need for bread was demon- 
strated to me by a released prisoner, who showed 
me the daily German bread ration that he had 
received. The specimen, which measures 6 in. 
long, 2 in. wide, and 2 in. thick, will be sent to 
England, where it will doubtless form a piece of 
propaganda in that man's part of the country for 



304 



AT THE WAR 



many a long year. He informed me, by the way, 
that the fifty-two disloyal members of the Irish 
Brigade are getting bread, despite their favoured 
treatment by the enemy. 

It is not only bread, however, that goes from 
Berne. Here is a list of parcels which the Bureau 
de Secours undertakes to send direct to British 
prisoners of war in Germany on receipt of the 
necessary funds. Parcels are standardised, and 
the cost and contents are as follows : — 



Parcel A. — 4.y. 


Parcel C. — 6s. 


I Alp milk chocolate 


I day shirt 


I condensed milk 


I vest 


I jam 


I underdrawers 


I cheese 


I pair socks 


I block chocolate 


I towel 


2 packets tobacco 


2 handkerchiefs 


2 packets citrol 


I wash rag 


2 handkerchiefs or 


I soap 


I hand towel or 


I toothbrush 


I housewife 


I tooth-powder 


I tin Liebig 


Parcel D. — 6s. (For In- 


Parcel B. — 4s. 


valids. ) 


ilb. tea 


lib. tin condensed milk 


I condensed milk 


lib. cocoa 


|-lb. lump sugar 


^Ib. sugar 


I jam 


lib. Quaker oats 


lib. biscuits 


lib. cod liver oil capsules 


I block chocolate 


I box extract of malt or 


6 Maggi soups 


ovomaltine, or Mellin's 


I packet tobacco 


Food (according to 


I towel 


special requirements) 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 305 

A combined parcel of food and clothing, A and 
C or B and C, is despatched for lo^., or special 
parcels can be sent. 

For Bulgaria and Turkey there are three sepa- 
rate parcels, one of clothing, one of food for in- 
valids, and another general parcel, containing 
food, tobacco or cigarettes. 

The prisoners, in general, can themselves com- 
municate with Berne and ask what they choose. I 
find that their chief requests are cheese, unsweet- 
ened tinned milk, butter, eggs, fruits, and vege- 
tables, and, of course, tobacco. 

Lady Grant Duff's gallant little organisation 
has had all sorts of difficulties to face. There are 
shortages in neutral countries as well as in the 
countries at war. In Switzerland they lack string, 
cardboard, and many essentials, and the provision 
of these necessaries is quite an undertaking in it- 
self. 

I spent an interesting morning watching the 
preparation and testing of the bread, the opening 
of the mail from England containing the cheques 
and postal-orders and the i6o regimental lists, 
and finally the moving sight of the packing of the 
precious bread and its despatch to our lonely war 
victims in Germany. 

I could not help contrasting in my mind a visit 
I paid some time ago to a certain camp in Eng- 
land. Some of the Berne bread was going to 
Ruhleben, where our civilians have been for two 



306 AT THE WAR 

years housed in a manner that has been graphi- 
cally described by the American Embassy repre- 
sentatives. 

The Germans in our hands are, in my personal 
opinion, treated with unnecessary and wasteful 
comfort. Their only deprivation is liberty. They 
are not at all grateful for their treatment. A 
German-Swiss gentleman who understands the 
Prussian character a great deal better than our 
powers-that-be told me that he knew that Prussia 
regards the indulgence of her prisoners in Eng- 
land as a sign of fear on the part of our Govern- 
ment, and that she considers that we are vainly 
trying to buy off Zeppelin raids and submarine pi- 
racy by ostentatious pampering of her people. A 
released English officer who had spoken to a Ger- 
man officer prisoner who had got home to Ger- 
many from Donington Hall stated that the Ger- 
man had the impertinence to try to persuade him 
that life in an officers' prison camp in Germany 
was exactly on a par with that at Donington Hall. 
He was absolutely ungrateful for the kindly treat- 
ment that he had received. 



IV 

GENEVA 

Propaganda Tricks 

Ge:ne:va 

Much valuable information can be gathered at 
Geneva in regard to the two important questions 
of prisoners and propaganda. 

Here are the headquarters of the old original 
Red Cross, founded in 1863. It would be im- 
possible in anything less bulky than a fat quarto 
to deal with its innumerable energies. From Ge- 
neva radiate the communications on the subject 
of casualties, prisoners, their help, their finance, 
to every part of the theatres of war. The official 
title of the great Geneva organisation is the 
"Comite International de la Croix Rouge." At 
the central office are some 300 assistants, volun- 
tary and other, English, French, German, Aus- 
trian, Swiss, working under the same roof and 
labouring to do their best for the afflicted, their 
relatives and friends. 

The extent of part of the work can be gauged 
from the fact that on certain days there are as 

307 



308 AT THE WAR 

many as 15,000 communications passing from one 
belligerent country to another through the office 
alone. Geneva is probably the chief centre of 
postal communication between Germany and 
England. 

The important task of receiving and correcting 
the lists of prisoners is carried on here under a 
system that is as business-like as the management 
of a London bank. Some idea of the difficulties 
with which the Geneva workers are faced can be 
deduced from the fact that there are already no 
fewer than 6,000 prisoners of war of the name 
of Martin, a common patronymic both in England 
and in France. 

The Comite International is not merely a pas- 
sive machine. It goes out of its way to search 
for news of the killed, wounded, and missing. If, 
for example, it notices in the German commu- 
nique that an airman has been brought down, it 
communicates with the German authorities 
through the German Red Cross at Frankfurt or 
Berlin and asks for the name and fate of the air- 
man and his observer. The German authorities 
in this and other matters relating to prisoners 
are prompt and not unkind. They supply Geneva, 
for example, with a neat form giving a full ac- 
count of any prisoner who has died in their hands, 
with a note from priest or pastor describing his 
last moments. The lists of prisoners in their 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 309 

hands are forwarded punctually and are legibly 
written. 

At the moment of my visit, the latest English 
list of German prisoners arrived by registered 
post from the Prisoners of War Information Bu- 
reau, 49, Wellington-street, London. It is pleas- 
ant to record that it was a model of care and accu- 
racy and is so regarded by the Swiss authorities. 
Geneva people, indeed, say that there is little to 
choose in this matter between the promptitude 
and activity of the English and Germans. 

The appeals that reach the Comite Interna- 
tional from all countries are heartrending. Ow- 
ing to the violent nature of modern warfare, the 
number of permanently missing is greater than 
in previous wars. Soldiers are buried by shell 
and mine explosions, others are permanently en- 
tombed in their dug-outs, and at the Battle of the 
Marne, for example, it is believed that many who 
have never been heard of were drowned. The 
Geneva and other organisations, including the ex- 
tremely efficient one in connexion with the British 
Red Cross Society, are ceaseless in their endeav- 
ours to trace every possible missing man. 

Apart from the business-like accuracy of the 
whole establishment, it is evident that the strictest 
neutrality is maintained by the ladies and gentle- 
men who conduct this great Swiss undertaking. 
All the various languages used by the belligerents 
are to be heard about the building, and the inter- 



310 AT THE WAR 

ests of every country involved are doubtless well 
looked after, if such a precaution be necessary. 

The list just arrived from England was ex- 
plained to me by a young Swiss gentleman who 
was so obviously from Oxford that I asked him 
at which college he had been, to which he replied, 
"The House." None the less, he was strictly neu- 
tral in the conduct of his department, whatever 
be his private views of the war. 

Before the great struggle, Geneva was one of 
the largest centres for English residents on the 
Continent. A number still remain, but the whole 
character of the town has changed. At the mo- 
ment, it is one of the most curious congeries of 
human beings in Europe. In the course of a sin- 
gle day I encountered Young Turks and Old 
Turks, Egyptian ''Nationalists," Rumanians, 
Greeks, Serbs, and Germans and Austrians. 
Some of the latter, not only here but elsewhere in 
Switzerland, are deserters from Germany and 
Austria. 

The local name for these oddments of human- 
ity is meteques. A number of the temporary in- 
habitants are waiting to know to what nation- 
ality they belong, as, for example, refugees from 
Trieste, who do not feel certain whether they will 
remain Austrians or become Italians. 

The Genevois themselves are almost to a man 
fervently pro- Ally. Several spoke very strongly 
of our neglect to combat German propaganda. 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 311 

France took the matter in hand a long time ago, 
and one of the ablest French journalists, Ste- 
phane Lauzanne, editor of Le Matin, after a due 
period of military service, was sent to Switzer- 
land, where he has done excellent work. 

A distinguished French-Swiss explained the 
situation to me in the following words, which I 
noted at the time : — 

The English should realise that Swiss 
military officers are, in the proportion of 
about three to one, pro-German, because 
they admire German military organisation, 
because some of them have German kins- 
men, have had German military training, 
or have married Germans. They recognise 
that Germany has perhaps under-estimated 
her task. The German Government, in or- 
der to create the impression in Switzerland 
that Germany is doing all the fighting, has 
made special arrangements, by a subvention, 
to distribute German newspapers and illus- 
trated sheets specially throughout Switzer- 
land. Look at this [he pointed to the Illus- 
trated Leipzig Gasette] ; Switzerland is del- 
uged with it week after week. It is beau- 
tifully printed in colours, the drawings are 
by the best German artists, the photographs 
are printed by a rotogravure. Here, you see, 
are English prisoners, almost unhurt, march- 



312 AT THE WAR 

ing with their captors to the camp. Here, in 
another paper, you are being bombed out of 
your trenches by this or that gallant Ger- 
man regiment. We have had a little Eng- 
lish propaganda here, but your people do not 
seem to study the methods of advertisers as 
the Germans do. German propaganda is 
ceaseless; yours is feeble and intermittent. 
The German propaganda is in the hands of 
advertising people who understand that 
when an advertiser ceases to proclaim the 
virtue of his wares the sale of them disap- 
pears. 

There are many weak points in the Ger- 
man armour in Switzerland and other neu- 
tral countries, and they could be pierced 
by astute people who understand the psy- 
chology of each particular neutral nation- 
ality. Germany has always the advantage 
of propinquity in dealing with the Swiss, 
the Dutch, the Swedes, and the Danes. That 
is a fact that should not be forgotten by your 
propagandists, and should cause them to 
make exertions, greater, even, than the Ger- 
mans themselves. 

The force of this pro-Ally Swiss gentleman's 
remarks was borne in upon me when two or three 
days later I read in Le Temps a telegram to the 
following effect : — 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 313 

The organisation for German newspaper 
distribution at Zurich has presented to the 
large hotels at Geneva a form on which the 
owner or manager states that he is ready 
to place at the disposal of the public, in the 
reading-room of his hotel, the following 
newspapers and reviews: — Der Tag, of 
Berlin ; Prankfurt Gazette, Cologne Gazette, 
Voss Gazette, Tdgliche Rundschau, of Ber- 
lin; Prenidenblatt, of Hamburg; Leipzig 
Latest Nezvs, Illustrated Leipzig Gazette, 
DieWoche (The Week), a Berlin illustrated 
paper; Reclams Universum, Berlin illus- 
trated journal; Deutsche Politik (German 
politics). 

Under the terms of this agreement, it is 
pointed out that the German propagandists 
will deliver the newspapers and reviews free 
to the hotel, on condition that their display- 
in the reading-room is not charged for. 

The agreement is to take effect from Sep- 
tember 1st to December 31st, 19 16. 

The Journal de Geneve protests against 
this latest evolution of German propaganda. 

Surely it would not be difficult for our Gov- 
ernment to counteract this step by distributing 
supplies of the Graphic and Illustrated London 
News, with, if necessary, supplements in French 
and German, for circulation in Switzerland. The 



314 AT THE WAR 

distribution would need to be watched by some 
shrewd man of business with Continental experi- 
ence, who would counter the German news at 
every step. 

I left Switzerland with two convictions, gath- 
ered from interviews with people who shall be 
nameless. 

First, that the question of the treatment of our 
prisoners in Germany demands much greater 
attention than it is receiving. 

Secondly, that if the British Government 
thinks that Swiss opinion is worth cultivating, 
in view of certain eventualities, it should take 
proper and prompt steps to combat German prop- 
aganda. 



V 

THE GERMANS IN SPAIN 

The) Army of Anti-Ai.i.y Worke:rs 

Pampi^ona, Spain 
Forty-six years ago Germany was at war 
with France over the question of the Spanish 
marriages and the Hohenzollern candidate, the 
initial cause of the Franco-Prussian conflict of 
1870. Since that time the Germans have never 
ceased to agitate for the political and commer- 
cial control of Spain. 

During the last two years, despite the war, 
they have managed by a stroke of good fortune, 
which at first sight looked like ill-luck, greatly to 
increase their numerical strength throughout the 
Peninsula. 

In the last days of July, 19 14, many Germans 
fled from France into Spain. Their number was 
speedily increased by the arrival at various Span- 
ish ports of travelling Germans, who remained 
there, rather than face the Anglo-French block- 
ade. When Portugal declared war there was 
another incursion of German refugees. To 

315 



316 AT THE WAR 

their number have since been added the German 
soldiers and civilians from Cameroon. It is 
said that altogether, including the large number 
of resident business Germans, there are now 
something like 80,000 Huns in Spain. The total 
is variously estimated at from 60,000 to 100,000, 
but a Barcelona man of affairs, who visits all 
parts of Spain continually, considers that, in- 
cluding the 20,000 residents of his own city, the 
number is approximately 80,000. That these 
80,000 Germans are not idle is borne in upon one 
within a very few hours of crossing the Spanish 
frontier. 

Let me first ask readers who have not recently 
visited Northern and Western Spain to remove 
from their thoughts all ideas gathered from Bor- 
row or Ford. "Backward Spain," so far as the 
Northern provinces are concerned, is the land, 
not of gipsy, beggar, and brigand, but of Span- 
ish, British, German enterprise, of highly-devel- 
oped water-power, countless new light railways, 
automobiles, factories, workshops of all descrip- 
tions, and of hotels with bed-rooms and bath- 
rooms en suite. 

Things are nowhere in the world as before the 
war. Thus, it is an unpleasant surprise, on go- 
ing to a Spanish bank, to find that our good Brit- 
ish sovereign, which, we were proud to think, was 
the standard coin of the world, is at an uncompli- 
mentary discount in a land where one formerly 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 317 

received a handsome bonus in exchange. It is 
unpleasant, too, on opening countless Spanish 
newspapers, to find that a belief in German vic- 
tory and in German invincibility is, apparently, 
a conviction in most parts of Spain. It is disap- 
pointing to be received by old Spanish friends, 
friends who have visited England, who know our 
country, with an air of doubt as to our capacity 
to make war. It is particularly disagreeable to 
notice the favourable and agreeable manner in 
which the Hun is received in Spanish society. 
And it is not flattering to the Allies to find that 
he has the support of a great body of the aristoc- 
racy, of practically the whole of the Church, 
Jesuit and otherwise, with, in addition, a large 
part of middle-class Spain. 

I would not for a minute disregard the strong 
pro- Ally views of many Spaniards, some in im- 
portant positions. We owe them a debt of grati- 
tude. Many are labouring assiduously to con- 
vince their countrymen of the justice of our 
cause, but they are face to face with the hourly 
wireless propaganda from the Nauen station, 
Berlin, and the Austrian wireless from Pola. 
They have to encounter all manner of cross-cur- 
rents beneath the sea of Spanish opinion, and 
these cross-currents have been forced by the Ger- 
mans till in many cases they have become verita- 
ble tides of pro-Germanism. 

It would be preposterous for a casual visitor to 



Bis AT THE WAR 

Spain, such as is the present writer, with but 
some half-dozen holiday tours in that country as 
a previous experience, to offer himself as an au- 
thority on a very complex subject. Yet he can, 
at least, record that which he hears from former 
Spanish acquaintances, from English and other 
residents, together with that which he reads, that 
which he sees. 

I came here to Pamplona because it is a con- 
venient German centre and because it is a pleas- 
ant place in a fair country. The days of early 
autumn in Northern Spain are crisp, yet warm, 
like the mimosa time in spring at Cannes. The 
Indian corn is now ripe; jasmine in great fes- 
toons and garlands, as we never see it in Eng- 
land, is everywhere, mixing its fragrance with 
that of the magnolia. The little, low-growing, 
purple wine-grapes in this, the famous Rioja dis- 
trict, are sweet enough to steal. 

When one surveys these rich valleys, in which 
everything, including olives, bright red capsi- 
cums, vines, peaches, beets, tomatoes, all seem to 
luxuriate together in wild profusion, it is not 
difficult to understand why the men from the 
sandy plains of Prussia are covetous. There are 
other reasons of which I shall speak. A glance 
at the map of Europe should be sufficiently sug- 
gestive of Bismarck's anxieties about the Iberian 
Peninsula. 

At the Cafe Kutz, at Pamplona, which, despite 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 319 

our blockade, bravely but falsely advertises Spa- 
tenbrau-Miinchen on its wide white awning, may 
be found after Mittagessen many of the types of 
the German elements that are unceasingly work- 
ing against us — and against Spain. One soon 
learns from their loud talk that the Germans in 
Spain have constituted themselves into a well- 
drilled army, obviously acting on definite instruc- 
tions. 

Just one typical scene. The Huns who were 
eating at one of the leading hotels to-day, and 
who had to bear our English-speaking as best 
they could, were probably mostly soldiers and 
civilians back from Cameroon. Their leader was 
a young Prussian of 30, whose neck and head 
were of about the same diameter. He had little. 
Oriental eyes, stiff wooden movements, a gash 
down the side of the face, received at a Mensur 
in student days, and hair cropped as closely as a 
poodle's. 

Pamplona is a great clerical centre. A num- 
ber of young priests were lunching, and heartily, 
let me say. As each left the room the young 
Boche rose and bent himself in half, in German 
fashion, with a tremendous bow, to the evident 
pleasure of the priests. The thing was exactly 
like the official railway courtesy ordered by tele- 
gram from Berlin to any more or less known for- 
eign traveller, and at the same time showed the 
minute care with which the German army in 



320 AT THE WAR 

Spain is working. With the Church on their 
side, the battle is half won. Later on, the same 
young Boche was one of a large company of 
noisy, hat-lifting Germans at the Kutz establish- 
ment, and it was amusing to notice that, as a 
flock of the black-robed father strolled by in an 
unmasculine costume (which is certainly not 
suited to Spanish heat and dust) the Huns cast 
amused and contemptuous glances behind their 
backs, and made slighting remarks about them. 

From a Spanish acquaintance, who is not a lit- 
tle concerned at the growing intensity of German 
activity in Spain, I learned a good deal of the 
habits and customs of the propagandists, for 
such every one of them is. 

Germany long ago impressed Spain with the 
prestige of her arms and her trade. On the 
Norte Railway the finest locomotives bear the 
name of their German place of origin, in legible 
letters, that can be read by passengers on both of 
the station platforms. At one time Spanish loco- 
motives came from England. In the home, or 
the hotel, there is nearly always a German piano, 
a German bath, and you switch on a German elec- 
tric lamp to see the time by a German clock. The 
chemists' shops are full of German drugs and 
preparations. 

A vast, new, many-windowed, oblong, ugly, 
industrial building looms up before you at the 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 321 

corner of a road, and you find that it is a sugar 
factory erected by Germans, since the war. 

The average Spaniard, who is more of a cahal- 
lero than a man of business, is naturally im- 
pressed by years of German commercial sur- 
roundings. Many Spanish business men are 
frankly afraid of Germans. 

The khaki-clad officers and men of the Spanish 
Army — especially the younger officers — looking 
uncommonly like our Belgian Allies except for 
the shape of their caps, are, I was assured by 
Spanish officers, convinced that Germany must 
win. 

From the moment of the outbreak of war every 
refugee as he arrived was immediately set to 
work to learn Spanish. Many of them had fled 
into Spain so hurriedly that they were without 
funds, and these were provided by the local Ger- 
man Consuls. But the invaders were not long 
idle. The majority obtained work in the innu- 
merable establishments of their compatriots, 
some in Barcelona, some at Seville, some in the 
iron districts, others in the countless industries 
in Spain into which the German vampire has dug 
its claws. A few, it is believed, have availed 
themselves of their knowledge of Spanish to es- 
cape, as Spaniards, to South America, to Hol- 
land, and to Scandinavia. For the purpose of 
such adventurous journeys they buy up old pass- 



322 AT THE WAR 

ports, or make use of others, manufactured for 
the special purpose. 

But, as a rule, the Germans in Spain show no 
great anxiety to get back to the land of the meat- 
less day and the bread-ticket. They look pros- 
perous and well-fed, and they are unquestionably 
helping to get Spain into the German clutch. 
They realise that if to a victorious Germany 
Spain is very useful, to a defeated Germany 
Spain is almost essential. 

In the likely event of the development of over- 
land transport by aeroplane, the coasts and har- 
bours of friendly Spain would be invaluable to 
Germany. The mineral wealth of the Peninsula, 
only now being scientifically developed, would af- 
ford her several sorts of raw material, of which 
Germany has little or none. And, as an outlet 
for German goods, as the main point of depart- 
ure for the wealthy Republics of South America, 
as a bulwark against English control of Gibral- 
tar, Spain is, from the German point of view, dis- 
tinctly Germany's "pidgin." 

The well-drilled battalions of German resi- 
dents and refugees in Spain know exactly how to 
confuse public opinion in any locality. In the 
North of Spain, where the French have never 
been popular since the Napoleonic invasion, they 
alarm the ignorant by threats that an Allied vic- 
tory might mean a revival of the days of a hun- 
dred years ago. In the West they state that, as 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 323 

a reward for Portugal's "treachery" in joining 
the Allies, she is to be given two of the richest 
Spanish provinces. 

Lately Spain became anxious on this point, 
coupled as it was with the statement that the Por- 
tuguese Army was mobilised against Spain. The 
Portuguese Government wisely asked Spain to 
send a military mission to inspect the situation. 
There was not, of course, a word of truth in the 
statement, which was industriously promulgated 
by one of the most widely circulated Madrid 
newspapers, the A. B.C., which, under a cunning 
pretence of neutrality, is, as I can easily prove 
by its files, subtly and continually pro-German. 
The Portuguese Government has had the wis- 
dom to cut off the Portuguese circulation of the 
A.B.C. One illustration from the A.B.C. will 
suffice. It may be found on page 8 of the first 
edition of September 3, at the beginning of an 
article headed "The MiHtary Situation." I trans- 
late it roughly and append the original Span- 
ish: — 

"The great Franco-English offensive may 
be regarded as broken. The results obtained, 
after two months' fighting, are practically 
nil, and it must be admitted, besides, that 
most of the little that has been won is due to 
the effort of the French troops ; whereby it is 
demonstrated that armies cannot be impro- 
vised. 



S24> AT THE WAR 

"The operations on the Somme have 
hardly influenced the position at Verdun; 
since, if it is certain that for some time past 
the Germans have not been attacking, they 
retain the positions conquered, and the re- 
peated efforts of the French against Thiau- 
mont and Fleury have not changed the situa- 
tion. To all appearances, it does not seem 
that, for the present, events of importance 
are in preparation on the Western front. 

"On the Isonzo, the Italians remain un- 
able to go beyond Gorizia; if it costs them as 
much to get out as it did to get in, they will 
have to wait still many a month." 

[La gran ofensiva franco-inglesa en el 
Somme puede darse por fracasada: los re- 
sultados obtenidos, despues de dos meses de 
combates, son practicamente nulos, y cabe 
augurar, ade mas, que lo poco que se ha con- 
seguido se debe en su mayor parte al esfuerzo 
de las tropas f rancesas ; con lo cual queda 
demostrado que los Ejercitos no se improvi- 
san. 

Las operaciones en el Somme apenas han 
influido en el campo de Verdun, pues si bien 
es cierto que hace tiempo que los alemanes 
no atacan, conservan las posiciones conquis- 
tadas, y las repetidas tentativas de los fran- 
ceses contra Thiaumont y Fleury no han 
modificado la situacion. Verosimilmente, 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 325 

no parece que se preparan, por ahora, en el 
teatro occidental, acontecimientos de impor- 
tancia. 

En el Isonzo, los italianos siguen sin poder 
salir de Goricia; si les cuesta tanto la salida 
como la entrada, hay que esperar aun mu- 
chos meses.] 

The article proceeds to deal in the same style 
with the Russian and Rumanian operations, and 
concludes by comparing the position of Greece 
with that of Spain in 1808. 

Not content with this essay in perversion, the 
A.B.C. had the impudence to publish on page 20 
of the same issue an editorial note entitled "Our 
Neutrality," calling upon its readers to bear wit- 
ness to its entire impartiality whenever they hear 
it called in question! 

In the south "Gibraltar for the Spaniards" re- 
mains the most successful German cry, appealing 
as it does to Spanish pride and sentiment. The 
Moroccan question and the Moroccans themselves 
are never let alone by Germany. The suggestion 
is continually put forward, too, that Germany 
stands for monarchy, order, and religion ; where- 
as England is the home of free speech and indus- 
trial unrest, and France the centre of anarchy. 

Next to our own island, Spain is the chief 
mother country of the world. Here and there 
the Spaniards exhibit maps showing to what 



326 AT THE WAR 

parts of the earth Spanish stock has carried the 
Spanish language. With the language has gone 
a certain amount of sympathy for Spain. The 
Germans know that, with Spain as a point d'ap- 
pui, and the backing of Spanish opinion, and, 
above all, with that of the Church, their cause is 
likely to be better appreciated in the New World 
than if mother-Spain were hostile. From Spain, 
therefore, proceeds to South America a great 
deal of German propaganda in the Spanish lan- 
guage. 

Although many war fortunes are being made 
in Spain — for she is supplying iron to England, 
railway trucks and war material of other descrip- 
tions to France — some discomfort has been 
caused by the war. One of the most unpopular 
topics in Spain is the high price of bread. An- 
other is the cost of coal, which in some places 
stands at £6 a ton. These circumstances are 
used by the German agents to stir up feeling 
against England for her wickedness in launching 
the world into war. 

The chief methods of propaganda, then, seem 
to be a daily stream of wireless communiques 
from Berlin and Austria, discrediting the Allies ; 
continuous activity on the part of the Church and 
the Carlists; the influence of the German "col- 
ony," with steady work on the part of the uni- 
versity professors and schoolmasters on behalf of 
the Central Powers, the chief channel being, of 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 327 

course, the Press. There are notable exceptions, 
such as the Imparcial, Bl Liberal, Heraldo, and 
others engaged in sustained effort to put the 
truth about the war before the Spanish pubHc. 
These efforts have, especially of late, had a con- 
siderable amount of success, and have aroused 
German hostility, as will no doubt this and an- 
other article of mine. A small, but, it is to be 
hoped, a growing part of Spanish opinion is dis- 
gusted with German cruelties, and more espe- 
cially with the wholesome enslavement of Belgian 
and French women in the invaded provinces. 
There has been talk in the English newspapers 
of a remonstrance by the Spanish Government in 
this matter, but in the absence of much stronger 
pro- Ally propaganda and much firmer British di- 
plomacy, it would be surprising were anything 
really important to result.^ 

Let me give a few instances as showing the 
methods of presenting news to the Spanish public 
by certain journals. In all the neutral countries 
German Press agents represent England as cow- 
ering under the Zeppelin terror. To-day, in one 
newspaper, I read of a great Zeppelin raid on 
London, and of orders by the Metropolitan Police 
that not a single ray of light was to be emitted 
at night, either out of doors or indoors. This 
news was prominently given — but not a word was 

^ Up to the time of going to press, as we say in 
Fleet-street, no remonstrance has been made. 



328 AT THE WAR 

said in this journal about one of the raiding Zep- 
peHns having been destroyed. 

In one of our headquarters' communiques the 
other day it was stated that we brought down a 
certain number of enemy aeroplanes. The com- 
munique was so put as to give the impression that 
zve had lost the aeroplanes, and the heading was, 
"The British Communique. Ten Aeroplanes 
Lost." 

This sort of thing, carried on day after day 
and week after week by innumerable journals 
among a people who have had German efficiency 
drilled into them for years, is a sort of poison 
that will only be removed by some great military 
success on our part. Verdun has done as much 
as anything to cure a certain part of Spanish 
public opinion of the "German invincibility" 
theory. (It is interesting, by the way, to note 
here, in Pamplona, a German centre, little books 
for sale, with the head of the Kaiser so drawn as 
to look like a skull on a background of blood, en- 
titled simply "Verdun.") Former Spanish ac- 
cjuaintances of pro-German views admitted to me 
that Verdun was puzzling to them. 

As elsewhere, the view is industriously spread 
by Germany that England is the sole and only- 
cause of the war, and that the unfortunate 
French are only too anxious to make peace. Eng- 
land, the might of whose army is absolutely un- 
known to the average Spaniard, is represented as 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 329 

sacrificing France, as she is alleged to have sacri- 
ficed Belgium, Serbia, Montenegro. If, runs the 
argument, Spain were so mad as to join the Al- 
lies, her fate would be that of France and the 
rest; and if she were even to exhibit friendly neu- 
trality civil war would result. The leading Carl- 
ist papers have recently headed their articles 
"Neutrality or Civil War !" 

President Wilson, who, like most Americans, is 
not liked in Spain, by reason of the loss of Cuba, 
and whose Mexican policy is not pleasing to a 
country that has millions invested in that dis- 
traught El Dorado, is quite a hero of the Ger- 
manophiles. When the pro-Ally Spaniards ask 
the pro-Germans when they are going to protest 
against German horrors, the pro-German reply 
is that the atrocities are malicious inventions of 
John Bull. If they were true, the good President 
Wilson would interfere in the matter. 

Another line taken by German propagandists, 
chiefly among the aristocratic classes, is that 
Spain should keep herself strictly impartial, so 
that, if necessary. King Alfonso and his Cabinet 
may perhaps be invited by Great Britain to arbi- 
trate when we sue for peace with Germany. That 
we shall eventually invite the Spanish Court to 
save our face seems to be accepted by all except 
the inner circle, who know some of the facts. 

One of these facts is that the Germans lately 
induced a well-known Spanish nobleman to go to 



330 AT THE WAR 

London to fly a peace kite, and that, on his ar- 
rival, those to whom he was accredited wisely 
took not the least notice of him. The Germans 
now assert that the unfortunate Spaniard went 
to London on his own account. 

From much that I have heard in the course of 
my enquiries, the Spanish Court would be the 
very worst arbiter between the Allies and the 
Central Powers. Whatever may be King Al- 
fonso's own knowledge, the views of the average 
Court official are something like these: — 

"English officers are gallant fellows, excellent 
polo players, good sportsmen in general, but ama- 
teurs. The English 'Tommies' are few in num- 
ber, brave, but foolhardy. The 'bloody repulses' 
so often mentioned in the German communiques 
are due to the fact that an army cannot be raised 
in a few years. France has called up all her men 
from 17 years of age to 48. England can do 
nothing on land of any service. Therefore Ger- 
many is bound to win, and even if she does not 
win, cannot possibly lose." 

I am informed that a Spanish military mission 
has been sent to British military headquarters. 
It is to be trusted that it will have come back with 
opinions that may somewhat change this Court 
point of view, though I am doubtful of the last- 
ing efifect of anything short of a smashing and 
palpable military defeat of Germany — one that 
cannot be disproved by wireless. 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 331 

Former Spanish acquaintances regard me as 
something of a hero in venturing across the Ger- 
man submarine-controlled Channel at this junc- 
ture. Others doubt that I really propose to go 
back to live and work in Zeppelin-infested Lon- 
don. One hears all sorts of stupid nonsense, from 
people who ought to know better, such as the 
statement that Princess Henry of Battenberg, 
mother of the Queen of Spain, has come to Spain 
for safety from Zeppelins. These views would 
be merely annoying were it not that they have a 
bearing on Spanish opinion during the war and 
on the theory of German invincibility. 

A good deal of travel among neutrals lately has 
borne in upon me the fact that no one wants to 
be on the losing side. It is obviously with this 
view in mind that Germany keeps her 80,000 
agents in Spain perpetually at work, hiding Al- 
lied successes, minimising the importance of such 
events as the intervention of Rumania — which 
shook a small section of Spanish opinion for a 
day or two — and belittling the British effort. A 
shrewd Englishman of business in Spain — and 
we have many such — assured me that he believed 
the present melancholy state of our good English 
pound sterling was due not only to the balance of 
trade against us but to the doubt as to our capac- 
ity to stand up against Germany. Former Span- 
ish admirers who have been impressed by the 
German propaganda are politely silent when some 



332 AT THE WAR 

idea is given them of the determination of Great 
Britain and her Allies to crush the vampire. 

Pro-Ally Spaniards say that immeasurable 
harm was done in the long months during which 
the British Army issued no daily communique 
whatever. The impression was then almost in- 
delibly confirmed that we had no Army. Yet 
during all that time we had taken our part in the 
battles of the Marne, the Aisne, and Ypres. 

There are quick minds at the other end of the 
German wireless and they watch our proceedings 
very closely. They flood Spain with downright 
lies, minimising statements and contradictions 
with a celerity which is quite amazing. I have 
been so struck again and again by the quickness 
with which neutrals learn from Germany what 
is going on, that I recently asked Commendatore 
Marconi if it were possible that the Germans had 
a secret wireless in our midst. He replied that 
it would be quite possible for them to have wire- 
less apparatus, that it would be very difficult to 
detect, and that he himself would be able to erect 
a wireless in England that our authorities would 
have great trouble in discovering. But it is cer- 
tain that what we are, in reality, face to face with, 
is great alertness and intelligence on the part of 
the German Press Bureau. 

The Germans in Spain have wealthy people 
among them who have seen to it that the various 
German communities and individuals are closely 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 333 

linked up. The newcomers are gathering every 
sort of information about Spanish industries and 
the possibilities of development in Spain. Need 
I point out that, with a population of less than 
twenty millions, 80,000 active propagandists and 
workers constitute a formidable body? 

The number may be 80,000, it may be slightly 
more or less, but the Hun seems to be everywhere. 
Almost the first words I heard in Spain were Ger- 
man. Seven out of ten of the numerous provin- 
cial journals are, more or less, Germanophile. 

In a motor journey of some 1,300 kilometres 
I encountered German pedestrian and motor 
parties all bound on the same purposeful work. 
Their task is the easier because the general Span- 
ish public is not vastly interested in the war. In 
Spain it is not the vital question that it is in Eng- 
land, in France, or even Switzerland. In the 
newspapers our Great Crusade often takes quite 
a minor position, and in the majority there is 
more about the bull fight or the latest crime than 
about the greatest event in the world's history. 



VI 

A SPANISH TOUR 
Some: Pe^opIvE: and Pi,ace:s 

Whii,e: it is difficult for any one who has seen 
anything of the horrors of the German invasion 
of Belgium and France to comprehend the neu- 
tral frame of mind, it has to be remembered in 
visiting and contrasting Spain, where there is no 
sign of conflict, that her people are at peace. 

A few of the more far-seeing Spanish leaders 
do not quite like that situation. There is a good 
deal of jealousy of little Portugal, who has not 
been afraid to throw down her glove to the Kai- 
ser. But, on the whole, Spain in general, and 
industrial Spain in particular, appears to be glad 
to be out of the maelstrom. 

In the course of visits extending over 30 years 
I have never known such prosperity in Spain as 
at present. With the exception of a few old 
women who haunt the doors of cathedrals and a 
single gipsy, who, by the way, asked alms in very 
fair German — imagining, I regret to say, that our 
party was from the Fatherland — we were not 

334 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 335 

assailed by a single beggar anywhere. Good for- 
tune seems to smile everywhere alike, in town and 
country. San Sebastian and other watering- 
places are having seasons such as they have never 
known before. In more than one of the excellent 
motorists' hotels erected during the past few 
years we found it difficult to obtain sleeping 
quarters. 

On setting out on a visit to the iron districts, 
we made the journey by the wonderful coast road 
viaZsirsiVLz, Bilbao, and Santander, certainly the 
most majestic, if dangerous, cliff road I have 
travelled in a somewhat extensive experience. 
The Bay of Naples, the road from Larne to Port- 
rush, or the Grande Corniche cannot compare 
with it. The only drawbacks are the dust and 
nerve-racking corners, round which tear high- 
powered cars, with open exhausts, at a speed that 
reminds one of the Continental road races of a 
decade back. 

There is a noise like that of a Zeppelin, or a 
traction engine. Our modest 20 h.p. car is passed 
as if standing still, and then dust, that completely 
obscures the view of sea and sky. 

"The King!" cries our chauffeur. His amiable 
Majesty is en route. Youth will be served. Fur- 
ther on we find a powerful Royal car — not, for- 
tunately, Alfonso's — in a ditch, with the two 
front wheels off. A day or two afterwards the 
Spanish papers record yet another and serious 



336 AT THE WAR 

accident to certain members of the Royal entou- 
rage. 

In numberless ways it is a strange sensation 
to be living in surroundings not unlike those of 
the Riviera years ago in peace time. The white 
wings of the racing yachts are in the bay, golfing 
and lawn tennis parties are setting out for the 
day's sport, immaculately-dressed young Span- 
iards, with Bond Street and Savile Row written 
all over their clothes, are escorting Senoritas, 
dressed from the Rue de la Paix. The whole 
thing, against the background of the war, is like 
a dream of something long past. 

The road continues, one long film of beautiful 
pictures, though it passes through the iron dis- 
tricts leading to Bilbao and beyond. There is 
nothing in the nature of a black country, or manu- 
facturing Lancashire, or chemical Cheshire. Now 
and then one is on the Riviera, in a few moments 
in the sad mountains of Donegal. The hot south- 
ern sun blazes down on little inland coves of the 
Atlantic, in which are ensconced tiny watering- 
places; but there are no wounded, as in France 
or at home. Villas, embowered in walnut and 
chestnut trees, with gardens gay with red and 
white roses, and the universal jasmine and pink 
oleander, have carefully closed persiennes to 
keep out the mid-day heat. 

As one approaches Bilbao the hills are red with 
the iron-laden soil from beneath which is brought 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 337 

down by vertical railway and wireways the 
metal for the guns and the shells. The rivers and 
their estuaries pour, brilliant red, into the green 
Atlantic. One of our party remarked that, if 
any one painted this contrast of sea and river, he 
would be regarded as an unusually eccentric Fu- 
turist. It was pleasantly cool sauntering along, 
but when we stopped for luncheon at Bilbao, the 
centre of one of the richest mineral territories in 
the world, we found that the day was as hot as 
midsummer at home. 

In the restaurant our next neighbour is a stout 
German lady, whose performance on the tooth- 
pick would have done credit to a restaurant in 
the Friedrichstrasse in Berlin. We English 
speakers receive the usual glares from the Ger- 
mans, who are sharing the excellent meal pro- 
vided. 

Afterwards, a Spaniard to whom we have an 
introduction, complains of the Allies' commercial 
black-list. We point out that war is war, and 
that the saving of Allied lives and the destruction 
of enemy trade is more important to us than com- 
mercial relations with neutrals. His reply is that 
the rule should be applied all round, and espe- 
cially to certain iron mines which are conjointly 
owned by Germans and English, and he men- 
tions Krupp and an English firm by name. He 
admits that the district is largely Germanophile, 
and he believes that considerable iron is going 



338 AT THE WAR 

into Germany by Norway. This statement is 
afterwards denied, although not absolutely, by an 
English authority whom we consulted. 

After sauntering through an incredibly beau- 
tiful country, with delicious glimpses of the 
Atlantic, passing rivers in which the trout were 
rising temptingly, and one in which there was 
excellent salmon fishing, we slept at Oviedo, at a 
palatial hotel as unlike the Spain of 20 years ago 
as could be imagined. At the local garage there 
was an assemblage of motor-cars of the first rank, 
and not one of them, we are glad to say, was 
German. Rolls-Royce, Renault, Delaunay-Belle- 
ville, a Daimler, and the Hispano-Suiza predomi- 
nated. 

There is an old Oviedo and a new which is be- 
ing built as rapidly and noisily as new New 
York, and as ugly as new Buenos Aires. 

Wakened in the morning by the sound of blast- 
ing in the neighbouring hills, a sound that is never 
out of one's ears in industrialised Spain, we 
crawled up the zigzags of the great Cordilleras 
Cantabricas, and suddenly descended from the 
dense, wet clouds into what was exactly like 
Egypt. Red and ochre hills, a great blazing, yel- 
low plain, dried-up looking towns on the hillside, 
pigeon cotes exactly like those in Egyptian vil- 
lages, and water raised by shadoofs. The wheat 
has been gathered, and in some places is being 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 339 

trodden out, as in Biblical times. In all places 
it is winnowed in the wind, in ancient fashion. 

Out on the plain the only birds are hawks and 
quail-like partridges, with also our own red-legs. 
We stopped the car outside an adobe hut of Moor- 
ish design, thick-walled and very cool within. 
The bright-eyed, dark, dry-skinned peasant, who 
comes out to tell us the way, invites us to taste 
some of the wine grapes which, together with 
some quinces, he is growing in his little oasis. 
He is extremely intelligent, declines any payment, 
as is usual in rural Spain, but accepts a cigar and 
a few picture papers — for he cannot read — and 
asks us about the war. It has had the effect of 
raising the price of bread. The land as far as we 
can see, he tells us, belongs to a great nobleman, 
and is worked on a feudal system. Owing to the 
emigration to South America, labour is scarce, 
and he and his work doubly hard in consequence. 
It would be good land, he says, if the rain were 
attracted by the planting of more trees. The 
war, he fears, will be long. His good manners, 
which previous experience has taught me to find 
everywhere and among all classes in Spain, for- 
bid him expressing an opinion as to the result. 

Later on that day a similar enquiry as to our 
route from an old labourer brought the question : 
Were we French ? "No," we replied, "English." 
He put out his hand and shook ours warmly, say- 
ing that he had been in the service of an English 



340 AT THE WAR 

family in Buenos Aires. And the war? How 
long will it last? Long, he feared. "The Alle- 
mans are strong." 

There is no country in which I have been where 
one is asked so frequently: How long will the 
war last? The war seems to be some great dis- 
tant monster which, despite the people's interest 
in their own everyday life, is ever, if distantly, 
present. 

The dust between Albert and Arras, in the 
earlier days of the battle of the Somme, when 
thousands of troops, transport wagons, and mules 
were stirring it, seemed to be, to use an Ameri- 
canism, the "extension of the limit." Egyptian 
dust is perpetual and insinuating and Indian dust 
is like khaki flour. But Spanish dust, in August, 
when a Norther is blowing, amounts to some- 
thing like a perpetual fog. A closed car is of no 
avail; goggles worn within it are useless. A 
passing mule can raise a cloud of it, and it was 
consoling to think, whatever may be the difficul- 
ties in front of our soldiers in that part of the 
map in which Sir Douglas Haig and General 
Foch are operating, a war in this part of the 
world would be worse, a veritable agony of thirst. 

Yet, little more than a hundred years ago, the 
great Duke's soldiers drove Soult's forces across 
waterless plains similar to these, at a time when 
there were none of the comforts of mechanical 
transport. 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 341 

The contrast between the peace and gaiety of 
small Spanish towns at night, and our thoughts 
of France at this time is trying. Yet no one who 
has been in a neutral country would wish to live 
in its atmosphere rather than in that of England 
or of her Allies. These Spanish towns are alive 
with children, who, having like all Spaniards, en- 
joyed their siesta, appear to go to bed about the 
time people are pouring out of the theatres in 
London. 

Almost every small centre has an excellent 
band, whose only fault is the monotony of its 
mournful, modern Spanish music, which seems 
to be almost always written in the minor. It is 
that of a people resigned to their lost position as 
conquistadores. 

Often, it is pleasant to note, we came across 
places in which there were not only no Germans, 
but no knowledge of Germans. In some districts 
where there were Germans the people were per- 
fectly frank in their dislike of them. The Span- 
iards are extremely good mimics, and can imi- 
tate German ways in a most amusing manner. 

Enquiries and researches in a good many quar- 
ters, every one of which revealed the same steady 
German purpose, brought us eventually back to 
San Sebastian, which many of its admirers claim, 
perhaps with reason, to be the most beautiful 
seaside resort in the world. San Sebastian to- 
day is humming with life and visitors. On the 



342 AT THE WAR 

way into the town we meet a small English 
jockey, heavily swathed, toiling at least four 
miles an hour in the afternoon sun, to reduce his 
weight for the racing, which takes place almost 
daily. The local bull ring is packed, and an at- 
tempt to get a seat for a pelota match was in vain. 

Although the Spaniards are still the proud 
people they have always been, there is that curi- 
ous mixture of democracy that makes San Sebas- 
tian a combination of Monte Carlo and Margate. 
The King and his yacht are here. Most of the 
Embassies have moved here from Madrid. All 
Spain that counts fills the beautiful villas on the 
hills, and the densely packed hotels. In the morn- 
ing the perfect sands swarm with children. 

Along the promenade that leads to Miramar, 
outside which lounge his Majesty's guards in pic- 
turesque red Biscayan caps, there is an endless 
procession of tramcars and motors, mingled with 
slowly moving, yoked oxen, and the perpetual 
donkey of the peasants, as often as not ridden pil- 
lion. The casino is, of course, the main attrac- 
tion of this very rapidly growing town. In the 
gaming rooms, as at Monte Carlo, are the same 
shabby old ladies, with solemn faces, deliberately 
placing their five pesetas, with the other and 
younger ladies, who throw their money away as 
rapidly as they get it. Here and there is an Eng- 
lishman, who looks thoroughly ashamed at being 
caught gambling in war-time, with the customary 



NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 343 

wizened old men, studiously working out their 
systems. There are Germans here, as every- 
where, but they chiefly have their headquarters 
at their own cafe in the town. A German in 
Spain is not, as a rule, on pleasure bent. 

A pleasing and quite harmless feature of the 
casino at San Sebastian is the organised gather- 
ing of hundreds of children on the great terrace 
outside, and in the rooms not devoted to gam- 
bling. The absence of black in the women's and 
children's dresses is a striking contrast to one 
who has just come from France, and, were it not 
for an occasional mantilla, there would be noth- 
ing but the vivid greens, yellows, and blues that 
sound so bizarre, but are not out of place in 
Spain, where the national colours of red and yel- 
low fit the landscape as properly as do the green, 
white, and red of sunlit Italy. The Spaniards 
make much of their children. Sometimes one 
feels that the small people are a little out of place 
at the hotel dinner hour, which is usually at 8.30 
or 9 o'clock. As a rule the children are beauti- 
fully dressed, well cared for, most attractive, and 
altogether sans genes. When we asked a Span- 
ish friend why that vivacious and quick-witted 
creature, the chico (the Spanish boy) develops 
so quickly into something like apathetic languor, 
he replied it was ''the education." Certainly the 
contrast between the early manhood of Spain 
and the alertness of the boys is very remarkable. 



344 AT THE WAR 

San Sebastian is itself solemnly and particu- 
larly interesting to English people, who have a 
pilgrimage of their own near by. 

And so, leaving the Casino, with its myriads of 
little ones, who were being entertained by the 
sending up of grotesque fire balloons, in the shape 
of all manner of animals and black men, and 
escaping from the noise of the two rival bands, 
we said good-bye to neutral Spain, by visiting 
the scene of the famous and gloriously victorious 
storming of the citadel in 1813, when our soldiers 
showed exactly the same qualities they are dis- 
playing on the Somme to-day. They crossed the 
river under a terrible fire, which filled it with 
English blood. They performed what seemed the 
impossible, and what was almost as remarkable 
as Wolfe's attack on Quebec. 

At the summit of the citadel are a few English 
graves, which seem somewhat more neglected 
than they should be. Erom this lofty scene of the 
great struggle they look straight out towards the 
Bay of Biscay to England. The most legible in- 
scription is as follows: — 

Sacred to the memory of Lieutenant- 
Colonel Sir Richard Fletcher , Bart.; Captain 
C. Rhodes, Captain G. Collyer, Lieutenant 
H. Machell, Corps of Royal Engineers, who 
fell at the siege of San Sebastian, August 
31, 1813. 



INDEX 



Advanced Dressing Station, 
Plan of West Peronne, 
114. 
Advanced Dressing Stations at 

the Italian front, 119. 
Aeroplane man's position most 
dangerous in war, 63. 

the bomb-dropping, 64. 

the, and photographic scout- 
ing, 65. 

fighting, a young man's 
game, 63. 
Aeroplanes and sea observa- 
tion, 66. 

and signalling, 62. 

fighting, 63; searchlights on, 
63, 

observing, 64. 

tricks to deceive observers, 
66. 

Zeppelins, and strong vi^inds, 
66. 
Air duels, early, and those of 
to-day contrasted, 63. 

fighting, great development 
of, 55- 
Amusements for British pris- 
oners in Switzerland, 
289. 
Armoured warplanes, 62. 
Army, apathy of French peo- 
ple on arrival of, 4. 

arrival of, in France, i. 

demeanour of, on reaching a 
strange country, i. 

English, an interesting ex- 
perience, 5. 

English, a perfectly fed 
force, 6. 

machine shops, economy in, 
22. 

Signal Corps' fine achieve- 
ment, 16. 

supplies, 42. 



Artillery direction chief serv- 
ice of aircraft, 62. 
intensity of French and Ger- 
man at Verdun, 109. 
"parks," 46. 
Artists, German, mobilised to 
make pictorial records of 
the war, 107. 
Astor, Lord, lends his house 
in Carlton House Ter- 
race to Red Cross So- 
ciety, 138, 164. 
Australian discipline, 97. 
Red Cross, 6, 85. 
women behind the front, 
their invaluable work, 8. 
Austrian acts of vandalism in 
Venice, 272. 



Bands in modern warfare, sel- 
dom heard, 47. 

Barges, hospital, in French riv- 
ers and canals, 122. 

Base Commandants, their tact, 
&c., 24. 
hospitals, care of wounded 
soldiers at, 43. 

Belgian Field Hospital, the ad- 
venturous career of, 229. 
girls and waste products, 22. 
Red Cross, seizure of ma- 
teriel by Germans, 
229. 
soldier, the, his menu, 6. 

Belgium, world's debt to, in- 
creasing steadily, 219; a 
renewed army, 219; care 
of its King for, 220; 
Baron de Broqueville, 
220, 221 ; well equipped 
with materiel, 223 ; the 
Belgian Field Hospital, 
229. 



345 



346 



INDEX 



Bell, Mr. Moberly, Lord 
Northcliffe, and The 
Times, 147. 

Berne bread for English pris- 
oners, 300 seq. 
generosity of its inhabitants 
to our interned prison- 
ers, 297. 
parcels to Germany for Brit- 
ish prisoners from, 304 
seq.; specimen parcels, 
304. 

Biebuyck, General, Aide-de- 
Camp to Belgian King, 
2.2.2. 

Bilbao, ZZ^^- 

Birdwood, General, idol of the 
Anzacs, 95 seq.; his ad- 
vice to his "boys," 99; 
always in the firing line, 
100; his meagre fare, 102. 

Bluejacket prisoners at Miir- 
ren, 294. 

Bomb-dropper, the, aeroplane, 
64. 

Bond of Empire in France, an 
indissoluble, 9. 

Boni, Professor, 152. 

Boot repairing at the front, 
Northampton machinery 
used for, 22; a Dublin 
bootmaker's invention 
for making bootlaces, 22. 

Boulogne, watching arrival of 
transport at, i. 

Bowlby, Sir Anthony, surgeon 
to 1st Australian Field 
Ambulance, loi. 

British bluejacket prisoners at 

Miirren, how they pass 

the time, 289. 

prisoners in Germany, their 

daily bread ration, 303. 

German- Swiss welcome to, 

296, 297. 

propaganda in Switzerland, 

feeble, 310 seq. 
women behind the front, 

their unselfish work, 8. 
workman, contradiction of 
his alleged slackness, 24. 



British, wounded at Ziirich, en- 
thusiasm for, 297. 

Broqueville, Baron de, Belgian 
Minister of War, 220. 
the "man" of Belgium, 220. 
Mme. de, 221. 

Buchman, Mr. L., late Consul- 
General at Munich, his 
care for our prisoners in 
Bulgaria and Turkey, 
301. 

Bureau de Secours aux Prison- 
niers de Guerre, British 
section of, in Switzer- 
land, Lady Grant Duff 
and, 300, 304. 

Butler, Mr. Frank Hedges, the 
only foreign visitor in 
Reims, 188. 



Cadore Front, on the, 253 seq. 

Cadorna, General, most hu- 
morous man of the war, 
87; comparison with the 
late Pierpont Morgan,, 
87; accomplishes the ap- 
parently impossible, 87 ; 
his quarters, 88; a states- 
man as well as a soldier, 
90; started soldiering at 
ten, 90; his rapid ad- 
vancement, 90; his aver- 
sion to favouritism, 90; 
does not suffer fools 
gladly, 91 ; and the tak- 
ing of Gorizia, 193 ; wel- 
comes inquiry into Army 
methods, 221. 

Campbell, Gerald, and the 
British section of the 
Bureau de Secours aux 
Prisonniers de Guerre, 
300. 

Canadian Red Cross, perfect 
organisation of, 6. 
women behind the front, 
their valuable work, 8. 

Care of wounded soldiers at 
base hospitals, 44. 

Carso Battles, the, 243 seq. 



INDEX 



347 



Casualty Clearing Stations, the 
kind of hospital visual- 
ised by the general pub- 
lic, 119. 

Casualties among doctors at 
the front, 108. 
greater proportion of them 
slight. III. 

Ceunink, General de, 223. 

Church Army Huts, not cen- 
tres for dissemination of 
tracts, 6. 

Civilian's impression of the 
war, a, 42-57. 

Clarke, Mr. R. J. A., member 
of the Berne Prisoners* 
Bureau, 301. 

Class feeling broken down by 
the war, 125. 

Clerical establishments, Army, 
loss of time and energy 
in, 30. 

Clericetti, Colonel, 274. 

Cormons, hospital at, 151 seq. 

Corps Collecting Stations, no 
Red Tape at, 118. 

Crater fighting, how taught, 28. 

Crossley, Sir Savile (now 
Lord Somerleyton), Act- 
ing-Commissioner of 
Red Cross Society in 
France, 148. 

Curie, Mme., the discoverer of 
radium, a wonderful 
business organiser, 35. 



Dead, the, recovery of effects 
of, department for, 31, 

Delay, complaints of, a ques- 
tion of labour and dock 
accommodation, 25. 

Delme-Radcliffe, Brig.-Gen., 
and British Military 
Mission at Italian Head- 
quarters, 274. 

Depreciation of English sov- 
ereign in Spain, 316. 

Derby, Lord, 133. 



Detail, Colonel, escorted to the 

trenches by, 222. 
Devices to trick the enemy, 
Canadians and Australi- 
ans pre-eminent in in- 
venting, 52. 
D'Hauteville, Mr. P. Grand, 
president of Prisoners' 
Bread Bureau at Berne, 
300. 
Doctors at the front, their, 
meagre shelter, no. 
Empire, their self-sacrifice, 

108. 
English, their meagre outfit, 

107. 
casualties among, 108. 
underground dressing room, 

93- 
Regimental Aid Post, 109. 
Dolomites, fighting in the, 260. 

seq. 
D'Orjo, General, Belgian Chef 

de Cabinet, 222. 
Douaumont Fort, storming of, 

198, 281. 
a fort only in name, 281. 
Dressing Stations, Advanced, 

at the front, in. 
Duff, Lady Grant, and the 

Bureau de Secours aux 

Prisonniers de Guerre at 

Berne, 300, 305. 
Dudley, Lady, her care for the 

happiness and comfort 

of officers, 8. 
Duval, Mme., popular restaura- 
teur, 35. 



England after the war, 
changed by the men in 
the trenches, 125. 

English doctors, their outfit, 
107. 
prisoners in Switzerland, 
kind treatment of by the 
inhabitants, 291. 
in Switzerland under Swiss 
discipline, 292. 



348 



INDEX 



Enemy, devices to trick the 
Canadians and Australi- 
ans pre-eminent in in- 
venting, 52. 

Etaples to Wimereux, a series 
of palatial hospitals, 9. 



Field operating theatre, a, near 

the battlefield, 118. 
Fighting in the Dolomites, 211 
seq. 
planes, 62. 
First impression of war — chaos 

and confusion, 42. 
Floating hospitals, 55. 
Food for our men in Germany, 
The Times' efforts for 
obtaining, 299. 
Francis Joseph, Emperor, ef- 
figy hanged on lamps in 
Venice, 272, 273. 
French artillery, intensity of, 
at Verdun, 109. 
girls and utilisation of waste 

products, 22. 
interned prisoners in Swit- 
zerland, 290. 
kinematograph operators in 
uniform, 41. 
French poilus at Miirren, 290. 
roads, superiority of, 54. 
soldier, the, as a cook, 6. 
French-Swiss newspapers and 

the war, 281. 
French Switzerland, good 
work of our French Al- 
lies in, 311. 
pro-Ally, 230. 
women capable managers of 
businesses, 35. 
Fry, Elizabeth, and social re- 
form, 36. 



Gate to Italy barred, the, 267- 
274. 

Geneva, a changed town owing 
to the war, 310. 
and British Red Cross So- 
cieties, the, 309. 



Geneva, Red Cross, heartrend- 
ing appeals to, from all 

countries, 309. 
German artillery, intensity of, 

at Verdun, 109. 
atrocities, remonstrance by 

Spanish Government 

talked of, 327. 
efforts to undermine Swiss 

belief in Allies' cohesion, 

283, 311, 312. 
exodus from France into 

Spain in 1914, 315. 
lies, Spain flooded with, 332. 
methods of propaganda in 

Spain, 320 seq., 326. 
newspaper propaganda in 

Switzerland, 281. 
propaganda in Geneva, 310 

seq. 
prisoners and their food, 

29. 
prisoners hidden in England, 

25- 

prisoners in France, 25. 

secret wireless apparatus in 
Spain, Commendatore 
Marconi's views concern- 
ing, 332. 

wounded not heroes at the 
front, 54. 
German-Swiss puzzled about 
Verdun, 280. 

anti-attitude of, to Allies, 
279 ; afterwards appre- 
ciative, 279. 

Switzerland and family ties 
with Germany, 281. 
pro-German but fair, 
281. _ 
Germans in Spain, with the, 

315-333. 
not anxious to quit, 322. 
are naturally cruel, 53. 
Germany, food for our men in, 

209-306. 
Germany's 80,000 agents in 

Spain, 331. 
Gifford, Lady, manager of 

Princess Louise's home 

at Hardelot, 8. 



INDEX 



S49 



Gleichen, Countess Helen, and 
the 4th Section British 
Red Cross with the Ital- 
ians, 272. 

Gorizia, the taking of, 238 seq. 

Government foresight in con- 
nexion with Red Cross, 
&c., societies, 7. 



HadfielDj Lady, her hospital in 
France, 9. 

Haig, Sir Douglas, 25; his 
headquarters, 69; rarely 
absent from, 69; his 
Scottish atmosphere, 70; 
his dourness, 70; his dis- 
like of secret reports, 
72 ; his candour, 72 ; sug- 
gestions invited, 72; no 
preference for cavalry, 
72; his wonderful sys- 
tem of communication, 
72; devotion of his staff, 
73; a soldier's apprecia- 
tion of, 74; his nightly 
vigil, 75; his co-opera- 
tion with the medical 
services, 109. 

Hauser, Colonel, Swiss P.M.O. 
at Miirren, 291, 296. 

Headquarters of a modern 
army, 48. 

Heat in the Trentino, 272. 

Hill, Octavia, and social re- 
form, 36. 

Hilton, Mr., builds golf course 
at Wimereux, 146. 

Hollings, Mrs., and 4th Sec- 
tion British Red Cross 
at the Trentino front, 
272. 

Horse ambulances at the front, 
116. 

Hospital barges in French riv- 
ers and canals, 122. 

Hospitals, floating, 45. 
in France, our, a world of 
their own, 123. 

Hospital trains at the front, 

122. 



Hudson, Sir Robert, Financial 
Manager of Red Cross, 

133- 
Hun, support of, in Spanish 
society, 317. 



Irwin, Major A.W.A., R.A.- 

M.C., 155- 
Italian armies, enquiry into, 

welcomed by Gen. Ca- 

dorna, 273. 
Army, with the — Invitation 

from the King of Italy, 

.^33- 

soldiers, varied diet of, S, 6. 

surgical mobile hospitals, 
visit to, 271. 

Switzerland, 284. 
Italy, King of, head of the 
Italian Army, 87 ; mod- 
est and self-effacing, 88. 



Joan of Arc, statue of, at 
Reims, undamaged, 188. 

Joffre, General, visit to, 80; 
his humble quarters, 80; 
an early riser and a reg- 
ular routine, 88; his 
methods at the Battle of 
the Marne, 81 ; his great 
organising work, 81 ; his 
simple uniform, 81 ; an 
impression of massive- 
ness, 82 ; a great person- 
ality of the war, 82 ; how 
he is bearing the war, 83. 



Keogh, Sir Alfred, 118; his 
work for the Red Cross, 

147- 
Kinematograph, the, and the 
war, use by British of, 

Kinematographers, mobilised 
by Germans for pictorial 
records of the war, 107. 

King's doctor, the English, acts 
as his own dresser, 7. 



350 



INDEX 



Kultur in Reims, disastrous ef- 
fect of, i88. 



Labour battalions in France, 
patriotic keenness of, 25. 

Lauzanne, Stephane, editor of 
Le Matin, excellent work 
in Switzerland of, 311. 

Leave for officers and men, 
urgent need of, 57. 

Lichtervelde, Comte de, Baron 
de Broqueville's secre- 
tary, 220. 

Life in Reims, 187-194. 

Lines of communication in 
France, a delicate task, 
20: comparison of, with 
those of friendly and 
enemy countries, 20. 

Little Belgian Army, the, 219- 
320. 

Liverpool, air bombardment of, 
206. 

Llopart, Captain, Swiss medical 
officer to prisoners in 
Switzerland, 291. 

Lunn, Mr., his good work for 
British prisoners in 
Switzerland, 297. 



Mackenzie, Capt., a fighting 
Salvationist, 97. 

Macpherson, General, and field 
operating theatres, 118. 

Marconi, Commendatore, and 
German secret wireless 
apparatus in Spain, 332. 

Mechanics, skilled, in France, 
patriotic keenness of, 25. 

Medical army, English, nu- 
merical strength of, 131 
seq. 

Melis, Inspector-General, and 
the medical arrange- 
ments of Belgian Army, 
229. 

Men's wounded vanity at do- 
ing women's work, 35. 



Merridew, Mr., his essay on 

English in Boulogne, 146. 

Miniature battlefields in 

France, 28. 
Monson, Lord, in charge of the 
British Red Cross in the 
Trentino, 271. 
Motor ambulance, the, 44. 

despatch riders, thrilling ex- 
periences of, 16. 
Mlirren, a day with the Brit- 
ish prisoners at, 289- 
298. 

British bluejacket prisoners 
at, 289-294. 

English generosity to pris- 
oners at, 299 seq. 

French prisoner poiliis at, 
290. 

games for British prisoners 
at, 295._ 

married prisoners at, wives' 
visits to, 298. 

organisation for British 
prisoners steadily grow- 
ing, 293. 

substantial fare for British 
prisoners at, 293, 294. 



Neish, Colonel, reception by 
at Miirren, 292. 

Neutral Glimpses, 277-344. 

Nightingale, Florence, the pio- 
neer of nursing, 36. 

Norfolk, Duke of, places Nor- 
folk Flouse at disposal 
of Red Cross Society, 
164. 

Northcliffe, Lord, his forecast 

as to the German failure 

at Verdun justified, 215. 

Mr. Moberley Bell and The 

Times, 147. 
personal connexion with 
the Red Cross, and re- 
sponsibility for funds 
for, 129 seq. 

Nurses behind the front, the 
arduous nature of their 
work, 8. 



INDEX 



351 



Observation balloons, watch- 
ful, 13. 

Observing aeroplanes, 62. 

Officers, Lady Dudley's care 
for their comfort, 8. 
young, their insufficient pay 
and allowances, 7. 

On the Road, 334-344. 

Operations in the field rare, 
118. 

Order of St. John and its rela- 
tion with the Army Med- 
ical Service, 15. 

Orth, Major-General, and his 
four "pets," 2.2'i. 

Our Soldier Boys arrive in 
France, 3, 4. 

Oviedo, arrival at, 338. 



Paquin, Mme., 35. 

Peronne, West, advanced 
dressing station at, iii; 
plan of, 114. 

Perversion, an essay in, 323 
seq. 

Petain, General, and Verdun, 
208 seq. 

Pfister, Mme., an act of jus- 
tice to, 189. 

Picot, Colonel, ex-Military At- 
tache to our Legation in 
Switzerland, 296. 

Pictorial records of the war, 
kinematographers and 
artists mobolised to 
make, 107. 

Pirelli, Captain, helps in re- 
cording Italy's efforts in 
the war, 274. 

Pommery, Mme., 35. 

Porro, General, assistant to 
General Cadorna, 91, 
222. 

Portugal, declaration of war 
by, causes German ex- 
odus into Spain, 315. 

Poynter, Sir E., and Red Cross 
Society, 138. 

Pozieres, shells at, 13. 



Princess Louise's home at 

Hardelot, 8. 
Propaganda by picture, 311- 

313- 



Red Cross, Australian, 6, 103. 

Red Cross Society, British, 

perfect organisation of, 

7- 

ambulances of, &c., 139. 

Astor, Lord, lends 18, 
Carlton House Terrace 
to, 138, 164. 

Battersea, Lady, Surrey 
House lent by, 138. 

Cecil, Lord Robert, and 
the search for the miss- 
ing, 163, 164. 

Chatteris, Nichols & Co., 
hon. auditors for, 145. 

Clarke, Mr. E. M., Motor 
Ambulance Department 
controlled by, 141. 

Coventry, the Hon. Regi- 
nald, controls Travelling 
and Passport Office, 141. 

good work of, near Cor- 
mons, 271. 

departments of, 136, 137. 

Devonshire, Duke and 
Duchess of, lend Devon- 
shire House to, 138. 

Donoughmore, Earl of. 
Commissioner of, 148. 

Dudley, Georgina Lady, 
controls Convalescent 
Officers' Department, 
142. 

economical administration 
of funds of, 143. 

Fitzpatrick, Mr. Herbert 
L., Commissioner for 
Salonica, 148. 

Fox-Symons, Dr. Robert, 
Auxiliary Home Hos- 
pitals Department con- 
trolled by, 141. 

Franklin, Gen. Sir Benja- 
min, controls Contract 
Department, 141. 



352 



INDEX 



Red Cross Society, Furley, Sir 
John, controls Hospital 
Trains Department, 141. 

Furse, Mrs. Charles, in 
charge of V.A.D., 142. 

Garstin, Sir William, Con- 
troller of, 13s, 140. 

Gosford, Lady, in charge 
of Central Workrooms, 
142. 

Gould, Col. Jay, Commis- 
sioner for Mesopotamia, 
148. 

gratitude to, for enquiries 
concerning missing, 174 
seq. 

Headquarters of, 131. 

How some of the money is 
spent, 151-162. 

Hudson, Sir Robert, Fi- 
nancial Manager of 
Joint Committee, 133 
seq. 

indefatigable enquiries for 
missing, 163 seq. 

inspects Italian Red Cross 
work, 271, 272. 

its personnel, 132 seq. 

Jameson, Sir Starr, directs 
parcels to prisoners of 
war, 141. 

Joint Committees' activi- 
ties overseas, 138. 

Kemp, Sons, Sendell & Co., 
accountants for, 145. 

Keogh, Sir Alfred, his 
good work for, 147. 

Lawley, Sir Arthur, in 
command at Boulogne, 
148. 

Lucan, Lord, and the miss- 
ing, 175- 

Mallet, Sir Louis, and the 
missing, 175. 

Mayhew, Mr. Basil, hon. 
secretary of, 145. 

Monson, Lord, Italian 
Commissioner for, 14B. 

Montgomery, Col., Com- 
missioner for British 
East Africa, 148. 



Red Cross Society, no con- 
nexion with Government, 

135- 

offices of, 131. 

Plender, Sir William, au- 
ditor for, 144. 

Poynter, Sir Edward, and 
the R.A.'s generosity, 138. 

Red Tape unknown, 118, 
141. 

retreat from Mons and, 
129. 

Ridsdale, Mr. E. A., Act- 
ing Commissioner for in 
France, 148. 

Russell, Sir Charles, chief 
of Collections Commit- 
tee, 141. 

Salisbury, Lord, provides 
quarters at Arlington 
Street for, 164. 

Search for the Missing, 
163. 

Sloggett, Sir Arthur, Di- 
rector-General of Med- 
ical Services of British 
Armies in France, 118, 
147. 

Somerleyton, Lord, Acting 
Commissioner in France, 
148. 

Stanley, Hon. Arthur, 
Chairman of Joint Com- 
mittee, 132 ; his affabil- 
ity and firmness, 133. 

Swift, Miss, chief matron 
of Trained Nurses' De- 
partment, 142. 

Thomson, Sir Courtauld, 
in charge in the East, 
148. 

Times, The, its successful 
appeal for funds for, 

143- 

Trevelyan, Mr., his prac- 
tical hospital ways, 152. 

Treves, Sir Frederick, 
medical staff chosen by, 
141. 

union with Order of St. 
John, The Times work 



INDEX 



353 



for, 132; joint commit- 
tee of, 132. 
Red Cross Society, visits, 130- 
149. 
Warre, Mr. George, in 
charge of the Motor 
Launch and Hospital 
Ship Department, 140. 
^ woman's work for, 132. 
Reims, Archbishop's ruined 
palace at, 192. 
Cathedral glass as souvenirs, 
193- 
pavement discoloured by 

German blood, 193. 

kept strictly closed, 156. 

Kultur in horrid nakedness 

at, 188. 
mutilated mansions in, 187, 

188. 
persistent bombardment of, 

189. 
statue of Joan of Arc un- 
damaged, 188. 
visit to Notre Dame Ca- 
thedral, 191. 
Rothschild, Lord, the late, and 

the Red Cross, 131. 
Royal Academy, its generosity 
to the Red Cross So- 
ciety, 138. 
Royal Army Medical Corps, 
perfect organisation of, 
6; casualties among offi- 
cers, N.C.O.'s and men, 
108. 
Royal Engineers and their 
unique telephonic sys- 
tem, 15. 
R.F.C., the, their splendid work 
in France, 63. 



St. John of Jerusalem, Order 
of, 6, 109; world-wide 
work of, 129. See also 
Red Cross, British. 

St. Mark's, Venice, Austrian 
attempt to destroy, 272. 

Salvage Corps, economical 
work of, 21. 



Salvation Army huts, 6. 
San Sebastian, arrival at, 341 ; 
neglected English graves 
at, 344- 
Schools, war, in France, 27. 
Science and the saving of life, 

44- 
Scotch folk on lines of com- 
munication, 21. 
Scott, Mr. and Mrs. Jebb, 300. 
Secret agents, German, in 

Switzerland, 281. 
Signalling from aeroplanes, 62. 
Sloggett, Sir Arthur, Director- 
General of Medical 
Service of British Ar- 
mies in France, 118, 148. 
Society of Friends, 6. 
Somme bombardment, inten- 
sity of, no. 
Spain, Allies' black list, com- 
plaint against, 337. 
British sovereign at a dis- 
count in, 316. 
dear bread and coal in, 326. 
flooded with German lies, 

332. 
Germany's 80,000 agents in, 

331. 
growing disgust at German 

cruelties, 327. 
Hun methods of propaganda 

in, 320 seq. 
present prosperity of, 316. 
pro-Ally Spaniards' state- 
ments of harm caused by 
non-issue of British 
Army communiques, 332. 
war fortunes made in, 326. 
Spanish Court, views of the 
average official on the 
war, 330. 
Government rumours of re- 
monstrance by, against 
German atrocities, 327, 
jealousy of Portugal, 334. 
newspapers, their belief in 
invincibility of Germany, 
323- 
Press, misrepresentation of 
Allies' news by, 327. 



354 



INDEX 



Spanish provincial Press, ma- 
jority Germanophile, 325. 
towns, peace and gaiety of, 

341. 
Speeding-up at home, how it 

can be effected, 26. 
Stanley, . Hon. Arthur, chair- 
man of Joint Committee 
of Red Cross and St. 
John, 133. 
Steed, Mr. Wickham, 204. 
Suffragettes, woman's work 

obscured by, 36. 
Swiss belief in Allies' cohe- 
sion, German efforts to 
undermine belief in, 283. 
good-heartedness to British 

prisoners, 279, 280. 
Government's kind treatment 

of our prisoners, 291. 
labour leaders and prisoners' 

work, 296. 
Post Office, generosity of, to 
British prisoners in 
Germany, 302. 
workmen prefer low wages 
in their own country to 
the higher wages of 
Prussia, 287. 
Switzerland afraid of Ger- 
many, 284. 
chastening effect of war on, 

284. 
French, good work of our 
Allies in, 311. 
interned prisoners in, 289 
seq. 



Telephonic system, the Royal 
Engineers' unique, 15. 

Thomson, Sir Courtauld, in- 
spects Italian Red Cross 
work, 271. 

Tiger, sinking of the, 206. 

Times, The, and its good work 
for the Red Cross, 143. 

Tradesmen's delivery vans at 
the front, 46. 

Trains, hospital, 100 seq. 



Transport, the, overcomes all 
difficulties, 14. 

Trenchard, General, Sir Doug- 
las Haig remarks on the 
General's young airmen, 
73- 

Trentino Front, enemy at, not 
underestimated, 270. 
terrible effect of shell fire on 
the, 269. 

Trevelyan, Mr. George Ma- 
caulay, in Gorizia, 237. 

Under the Six Stars, 95-105. 
Unprintable Anglo-Saxon, 117. 

Vandalism by the Austrians, 
272. 

V.A.D., the good work of, 120; 
a German officer's ap- 
preciation of, 120; tire- 
less activity of nurses 
and doctors, 121 ; absence 
of complaints from, 121. 

Verdun, approach to, 45 seq.; 
197 ; Crown Prince's 
Army at, 197; German 
faults at, 197; French 
losses at insignificant, 
198, 199; situation of, 
202; climatic conditions, 
202; battle of, 197-215; 
Douaumont Fort, 198, 
199; Red Cross and Or- 
der of St. John stations 
at, 207 ; General Petain 
and, 208; his resem- 
blance to Lord Roberts, 
209; a prophetical fore- 
cast by Lord North- 
cliffe, 215; German- 
Swiss puzzled about, 
280 ; a cure for German 
invincibility in Spain, 
281. 



Walking Wounded Collect- 
ing Stations, 116. 
V/ard, Mrs. Humphry, 17. 



INDEX 



355 



War doctors, the, 103-107. 
topsy-turveydoms of, 235. 

Ware, Brigadier-General Fa- 
bian, chief of the 
Graves Registration 

Committee, 166. 

Warplane of 1916, the, 18, 19. 

Warplanes, 61-66. 
armoured, 62. 

Warre, Mr. George, in charge 
of the Motor Launch 
and Hospital Ship De- 
partment of the Red 
Cross, 140. 

War schools at the front, 27- 
29. 

Waste of 1914 a thing of the 
past, 20, 21. 
products, ingenuity in utili- 
sation of, 22. 

Wealthy Germans in Spain 
as active propagandists, 
332. 

Wielemans, General, Chief of 
Belgian Staff, 222. 

Wilson, President, a hero of 
Spanish Germanophiles, 
329- 

Wimereux, the King's doctor 
at, 7. 
to Etaples, a series of pa- 
latial hospitals, 7. 

Wireless apparatus, secret, in 
Spain, Commendatore 
Marconi's views con- 
cerning, 332. 
telegraphy at the front, 16. 

With the Germans in Spain, 
315-344. 
Italians, 233-274. 
our released prisoners in 
Switzerland, 277-314. 



Woman's part in the war, 35. 
work obscured by hysteria of 
Suffragettes, 36, 37. 

Women, how they are helping 
in the war, 37. 
their adaptability for war 
work, 36. 

"Woodbines" at Miirren, 292. 

Woods, Mr. J. A. W., his self- 
sacrifice, 295. 

Workers at the front, consid- 
eration for, 23. 

Workshops behind the Army, 

Wounded vanity of men who 
are doing women's work, 

35- 
Wright, Orville, generosity of 

re British patents for 

aircraft, 61. 
Bros., pioneers of aircraft, 

61. 
Wyndham, Lieut.-Col. W. F. 

G., M.V.O., 301. 



X-RAY apparatus in the Tren- 
tino, 271. 



Y.M.C.A. not distributors of 
tracts, 6. 
its ubiquity, 6. 

Young officers, their insuffi- 
cient pay and allow- 
ances, 7. 



Zeppelins, aeroplanes, and 

strong winds, 66. 
Ziirich, arrival at, 277. 



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